I fell for ‘ill friend’ voucher scam

On New Year’s Day, I had a conversation on the phone with my oldest friend. 

This friend is sadly suffering from fast-deteriorating multiple sclerosis. She told me how her mobility was getting worse, and that soon she may no longer be able to do certain things for herself.

Later that day, I received an email from the same friend’s email address. She said she had been feeling unwell, and asked me to buy her some Airbnb vouchers as a gift for a relative. Given our conversation, the request seemed plausible. 

I headed to the Amazon website and purchased the £250 voucher using my Tesco Bank credit card. 

When prompted to enter an email address to send the voucher and validation code to, I entered the one my friend had given me for her relative. 

However, when I asked my friend if they had been safely received, she had no idea what I was talking about. 

Her email had been hacked and I had sent the voucher straight into the hands of a con artist. By this time they had already cashed them in. 

I contacted Tesco Bank to request a chargeback. While it initially refunded me the money, it later took it back. Is this fair? W.S., Bucks

Tricked: This reader headed to Amazon to purchase an Airbnb voucher for a ‘friend’

Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer champion, replies: This voucher scam has sadly been going on for some time. 

Fraudsters gain access to an unwitting victim’s email, usually because they have a password that is easy to guess or which has been part of a data leak. 

They will send a mass email to as many of the person’s contacts as possible asking them to buy vouchers on their behalf. 

I urge anyone who receives an email like this to phone the person who has sent it immediately. 

Not only will this confirm that it is a scam (which it almost definitely is) but it also allows the person whose email has been compromised to warn other friends and family not to fall for it, before it is too late. 

Airbnb vouchers are a common request, as well as gift cards for Amazon, Apple and Google Play. 

The scammer usually invents a reason why they can’t speak to you on the phone and a common excuse is that they have laryngitis. 

And like many fraudsters, they will try and create a sense of urgency, telling you that they need a last-minute birthday present or something similar. 

They will often request that you order the card via an Amazon link and send the card directly to the recipient, via a third-party email address you don’t recognise. 

This will send it straight to the scammer’s inbox, complete with the activation codes which allow them to spend it. 

Inevitably, this is then followed up by an exchange like the one you had, where you mention the vouchers to your very confused friend and the penny finally drops. 

Your first port of call was your credit card provider, Tesco Bank. When you initially contacted the firm, you were told that Tesco couldn’t help and you needed to contact Airbnb and Amazon instead. 

This wasn’t quite correct, though, as you were within your rights to request a chargeback. 

This is when a debit or credit card provider tries to ‘claw back’ money that has been spent on a product or service which was either not received, was faulty or was not as described. 

I certainly felt Airbnb wasn’t responsible for your refund in this instance, as the voucher was sold to you directly by Amazon’s trading entity, Amazon EU S.à r.l. I presume it purchases the vouchers in bulk from Airbnb, and then sells them on. 

One of the reasons voucher scams are so successful is that several firms are involved in selling them. 

While the customer scrambles around working out who to contact, the fraudster is busy booking their next holiday. 

You found both Airbnb and Amazon unresponsive to your request, so returned to Tesco again a day later. 

This time it did agree to look in to a chargeback, and it paid you £25 compensation for initially misdirecting you. 

You were delighted that the £250 was returned to your account ten days later. 

However, a month after that, you received another call from Tesco where it asked you more questions about the fraud. 

On 5 March, the £250 was taken back by Tesco again which you told me you felt was ‘unprofessional’. 

Under chargeback, it is common for firms to refund the money to customers temporarily while the payment is being investigated – but this can be taken back if the investigation concludes that the criteria for a chargeback were not met. 

When I contacted Tesco, it said this was mentioned to you in your call in February, but you maintain that you weren’t aware.

One of the reasons a chargeback can be turned down is if the bank decides the customer was ‘liable’ for the transaction. In scam cases, this usually means the customer ignored obvious warning signs, or didn’t take enough care to ensure that the person they were paying the money to was who they said they were. 

While voucher scams are now quite commonplace, I felt that there were exceptional circumstances which made it more understandable that you fell for the ruse. 

Namely, you had been speaking to your unwell friend who mentioned that they might need help with tasks in future, just hours before you were asked to do this favour for them. 

In light of this, I returned to Tesco to ask if it would reconsider – and I am delighted that it has and your £250 reimbursement will be in your account soon. 

A spokesman said: ‘We sympathise with W.S., her experience of being scammed by fraudsters is one that we encourage all customers to be alert for. After reviewing the case, we’ve agreed to refund her as a gesture of goodwill.’

I also wanted to contact Amazon to ask what it was doing to combat such scams on its platform. 

I noticed that, on the page on its website where Airbnb vouchers are sold, there were lots of one-star reviews from customers who say they were tricked into purchasing one as part of a scam. 

Amazon pointed out that it had added a warning to the ‘About this item’ section on the Airbnb voucher page, which reads: ‘Be alert: Scammers may pose as legitimate businesses or even as people you know, urgently requesting you to buy gift cards.’ 

It also has a page on its website on common gift card scams. 

To my surprise, Amazon also agreed to pay you £250 back – meaning you will receive a total of £500.

I was glad to help you sort this out, and hope it serves as a warning to those who might receive an email of this nature in future.