It’s one of your worst nightmares: handing over tens of thousands of pounds to scammers posing as your bank, conning you out of the life savings you strived to build up over years of hard work.
This became a reality for Jane Caldwell, 66, and husband Stephen, 68, in 2016 when they fell victim to an elaborate ruse that emptied almost every penny they’d stowed away.
It included the lump sum from Stephen’s retirement pot after decades of teaching, funds from the sale of bereaved family members’ homes, and the couple’s reserves stashed over the years to build a nest egg that would allow them to enjoy their later years together after raising a family of three children.
In total, almost £100,000 was snatched – around half of which they managed to get back, but only after weeks of tireless and persistent fighting with their banks.
Yet the significant losses incurred put paid to many of their future plans. Dreams of comfortable holidays, making a large contribution to their son’s wedding, and the repair of a rare 1960s Italian sports car stored in a garage for years, were dashed in an instant.
Or so they thought…
In a tear-jerker episode airing on National Geographic tonight, the couple from Lancashire are presented with their once dilapidated 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider rebuilt to pristine condition by the hosts of popular vehicle restoration show, Car SOS.
The surprise takes place on Jane’s 66th birthday – 26 years later than Stephen had originally promised to have the car ready as a 40th birthday gift – in what she told me in an exclusive interview is ‘an example of the universe doing a full circle’ after her unbearable anguish.
From scam to glam: A very special episode of Car SOS airing tonight documents the restoration of an Alfa Romeo belonging to Jane Caldwell (pictured) who in 2016 was conned out of £100k
Jane and husband Stephen had bought the 1969 Alfa Spider in 1998 with the intention of rebuilding it. But after being swindled out of their savings, the car fell into a state of disrepair
It’s easy to say to yourself ‘I’d never fall for that’ when reading heart-wrenching tales of good folk being fleeced out of thousands of pounds by con artists.
But the phone call Jane received on a Saturday afternoon in 2016, while working in the cafe her and Stephen run together, sounded as authentic as you could imagine.
Someone claiming to be a member of her bank’s fraud intervention team called from what looked like the department’s genuine telephone number. He requested Jane hang up immediately and dial the fraud emergency number printed on her debit card, bank statements and listed on its website, which is usual protocol. When she did, it was the same voice greeting her at the other end of the line.
She was told that attempts were being made to withdraw money from the couple’s accounts and that they should safeguard their funds by moving everything into a new secure account in their names.
‘He listed off some of our recent transactions, so I believed I was talking to my bank,’ she tells me.
Having successfully run their own business, the couple are clearly astute with finances and wary of deceitful activity. As such, Jane asked her husband to call the bank to double check what she was being told was legitimate.
When he did, another member of the fraud team informed Stephen that it was a bona fide conversation.
Persuaded that their finances were at risk, Jane agreed to move the money with the assurance that it would then reappear in their account the following day once the threat had passed.
But this was all part of an elaborate ‘phishing’ scam that was targeted, calculated and utterly convincing.
Stephen Caldwell, 68, a retired teacher and cafe owner, tells Car SOS host Tim Shaw how the couple were duped
The imposters had hacked into Jane’s laptop with malicious spyware to access her online banking.
They had scraped through her social media accounts to create a profile of her lifestyle and spending habits.
And they were using complex phone intercepting technology to replicate the genuine phone number of her bank and hijack Stephen’s back-up telephone call when he tried to validate the legitimacy of what Jane had been told.
It was such a polished and professionally-conducted attack that experts have since told the couple that most unsuspecting people would have fallen foul of the fraudulent ploy.
But for Jane and Stephen, that is little consolation for being swindled out of almost £100,000 in savings.
Even today, a decade on from the triggering episode, the couple are visibly upset when I ask them to relive the very moment they twigged the money was gone.
Jane says: ‘When I realised we’d been scammed, I immediately contacted Action Fraud, who quickly contacted our banks to tell them what had happened. But they were wholly unsympathetic.
‘They basically said, “what a stupid woman, whatever were you thinking?” There was zero compassion.’
The finished Alfa Romeo is presented to Jane on her 66th birthday as a surprise at the culmination of the hour-long Car SOS episode airing tonight
The couple have since appeared on BBC show Rip-Off Britain, where they were shown the unscrupulous tactics the con artists had used as a warning to viewers for how to avoid falling victim to the same type of scam.
But Jane explained to me that it did little to quell the incredible strain it has put on her, Stephen and their 42-year marriage.
She says: ‘It completely cleaned us out. Everything we had worked for over 30 years. Stephen had just retired and we inherited some money from his father, who had recently passed away. It was the first time ever that we’d had a good pot of money that would provide us with a bright future.’
Stephen nods along while his wife explains that he has endured post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the scam. And I can see he’s clearly still affected by the events as he continues to come to terms with losing such a sizable amount of money.
This makes tonight’s Car SOS episode on National Geographic at 8pm all the more emotionally driven when the seasoned duo of Tim Shaw and Fuzz Townshend present the couple with their beautifully restored 1969 Alfa in all its glory.
Jane and Stephen had bought the rare Alfa Romeo in 1998 having fallen in love with the car that featured in 1967 iconic film The Graduate starring Dustin Hoffman in his Spider Duetto
The example Car SOS hosts Fuzz Townshend (right) and Tim Shaw (left) were presented with at the start of the episode had clearly seen better days
Fuzz describes the rust as the ‘worst sort that goes right down into the metal’
‘One of the worst cases of rust we’ve seen in 14 years’
Jane and Stephen’s 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider is particularly rare.
Not only is it one of the 13,678 ‘Round Tail’ – or boat tail, as they’re better known – examples of the two-seat roadster the Italian manufacturer produced, it is one of around just 500 right-hand-drive models and very few factory finished in Misano Blue.
It too has the upgraded 1,779cc inline-four-cylinder engine, which delivered 118 horsepower when new.
Only around 5,000 of the cars produced between 1968 and 1969 had this higher-capacity powertrain.
Jane had fallen in love with the idea of owning one of these cars having watched the iconic 1967 film The Graduate starring Dustin Hoffman in his red 1966 Spider 1600 Duetto.
After a painstaking search, Stephen found a ‘rattly’ version listed on Auto Trader in 1998 and swiftly bought it with the intention of restoring the sports car for Jane’s 40th birthday just two years later.
But when the project hit delays and was eventually put into storage in a barn in 2012, the Alfa was pushed onto a long list of jobs to tackle when retirement eventually arrived.
However, with their funds drained by scammers and the car’s condition falling into a state of disrepair, what greets Tim and Fuzz on their first inspection of the Alfa is ‘one of the worst cases of rust we’ve ever encountered in 14 years of filming the show’, Tim tells me.
Fuzz describes it as the ‘worst sort of rust that goes right down into the metal’ as he’s seen running his hands over the deteriorating bodywork in the opening scenes.
The show documents the restoration process of the 1969 Alfa Romeo, which Tim says was incredibly difficult to source parts for. Only a few hundred right-hand-drive Spiders were made
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This marks the beginning of an assiduous effort to bring the classic car back to its former glory – an almost impossible task given the terrible condition combined with the difficulty sourcing parts for such a unicorn car.
‘Even small things, like the heater components, are incredible hard to find today,’ Tim explains as we sit down to discuss the episode.
He details that the car also showed obvious evidence of ‘bodged repairs, poor welding and cheap fixes’ over its lifetime.
‘Previous owners had clearly gone to every affordable length possible for the Alfa to scrape through MOT tests for years before Stephen took it off the road.
Tim says: ‘By the time we had taken it to pieces, we realised just how bad it was. There was no other viable financial way – unless it was something of great, of great, sentimental value – that anyone could justify getting that car put back on the road.’
Jane is presented with her on her 66th birthday – some 26 years later than husband Stephen (background) had promised to have it ready
Despite Tim and Fuzz finding plenty of evidence that the car had been repaired badly in its lifetime, the 1969 Alfa is returned to its former glory after weeks of painstaking effort
Jane said the rebuild of her beloved classic Alfa Romeo is an ‘example of the universe going full circle’ after the couple hand endured terrible financial woes
Yet, the 60-minute episode documents the car’s restoration to its immaculate best, culminating with Tim and Fuzz proudly presenting the glorious Alfa to Jane in a secret reveal on her 66th birthday, surrounded by friends and family.
Car SOS even modernised some of the Alfa’s components, including the brakes and suspension, so that she can comfortably and confidently use it daily, having never had the opportunity to drive it in the 28 years the couple have been its registered keepers.
Jane says: ‘After experiencing something so rubbish in our lives, it feels like the universe has gifted us something we can treasure for our future and look forward to making new memories.’
*Tonight’s episode of Car SOS featuring Jane and Stephen Caldwell and their 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider airs tonight at 8pm on National Geographic (Sky channel 129 and Virgin Media channel 266). A new episode airs every Thursday night at the same time
