Scams and fraud

A US musician has revealed he’s been scammed out of his entire £300,000 retirement fund in a shocking blow.

Singer G Love revealed that he had accidentally installed some malicious software onto his computer which resulted in scammers taking all of his cash.

The performer took to X – formerly Twitter – to speak out on the incident that saw his entire retirement fund stolen.

He wrote: “I had a really tough day today I lost my retirement fund in a hack/Scam when I switched my @Ledger over to my new computer and by accident downloaded a malicious ledger app from the @Apple store.

“All my BTC gone in an instant.”

The singer appeared to be referring to his bitcoin investments in the tweet.

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One of his fans replied to confirm they had reported his issue to the Ledger app.

Ledger is an app known to be used for storing cryptocurrency.

He further went on to add: “I lost 5.9 BTC all I had for ten years I worked on this f*** be careful out there.”

5.9 BTC can be converted to work out at approximately £300,000.

G Love is best known for being the frontman for the band G. Love & Special Sauce.

The 53-year-old has been in the music industry since the early 90s.

He has released various albums as part of the band as well as being a soloist.

He continues to regularly perform gigs and appear at festivals and events across America.

The most common scams

Source: Citizens Advice

Online shopping scams 26%
Investment scams 18%
Other financial scams 18%
A friend or family member needs help scams 16%
Mobile network scams 14%

IN A time where most stars are terrified they’re one post away from getting ‘cancelled’, influencer Brittany Miller has somehow managed to maintain her legion of 3.5M fans despite a very controversial past.

TikTok star Brittany’s fame comes despite being at the centre of a massive scam which saw her admit to faking cancer – something which has been career-breaking for several others.

Six years ago, Brittany, now 29, was convicted of fraud by false representation after it was revealed that her claim to have been suffering from stage 3 gastric cancer was in fact a lie.

Brittany pretended to have been diagnosed with the cancer and even had a JustGiving page to raise money for the alleged illness.

Rather than keep a low profile following the scandal, Brittany grew her profile even further via videos on TikTok.

Posting videos which saw her dishing up her dinner and documenting her pregnancy – many fans assumed she was nothing but a sweet young mum as her follower count catapulted.

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As news of the scam began circulating on TikTok again last year, Brittany took to the platform in November with a teary apology – claiming that her lies were a result of “extremely bad mental health”.

In her groveling apology, Brittany claimed that she wasn’t the one who set up the JustGiving page to raise money for her “illness”.

But a friend told The Sun that she wasn’t being truthful in the videos, claiming Brittany did try to raise money for herself via the fake illness.

“Brittany lied to us all – not just her friends but also her followers online. 

“Now people are following her and they have no idea what she is really like,” they said last year.

They added: “Yes it happened years ago but lying about cancer is really wrong.

“Lots of her followers will have family members living with cancer but little do they know that every time they watch one of her videos, they are giving money to a fraud.”

Since then, Brittany has returned to posting her usual content on the app, such as cooking videos and clips detailing family life with her kids and partner Ash.

It’s a stark contrast to other stars who have been “cancelled” for similar crimes, with the likes of Belle Gibson – who famously lied about having brain cancer – losing their entire careers.

So, how has Brittany managed to continue business as usual despite the scandal?

According to PR and Influencer expert Chloe Franses, taking accountability for the scandal is what kept Brittany in the spotlight.

Whilst others, such as Belle Gibson, have opted for the “deny, deny, deny” strategy, Brittany’s teary apology video struck a chord with fans.

“I think that the main reason for her avoiding total cancellation was because she publicly lent into her vulnerability and her issues with mental health,” said Chloe, who owns PR agency HelloFranses.

She added: “This, especially nowadays, is something people are open to empathising with.”

TikTok also uses features where creators can block certain words, or profiles, from their comment section and page, something which could have helped water down the chatter of the scandal on Brittany’s page, says Chloe.

“There have been reports suggesting that she has retained this large following by using filters on her comments to block words related to the scandal and actively deleted negative remarks.

“As with a lot of things in the world of influencers, the past can be glossed over, with a shiny, scroll stopping, new focus.

“Admitting you were weak and you have done something wrong, saying sorry to your fans (and deleting anyone who isn’t) and committing to being better… This is the reinvention playbook that she is, well, walking into…”

In fact, the shocking scandal could have even worked in her favour, as Brittany could be raking in up to £20,000 per post through her blooming social media career, says PR guru Nick Ede.

He told The Sun: “With her following, she could be earning £5,000–£20,000 per post and potentially hundreds of thousands a year across TikTok and YouTube.

“She will have lost deals but brands know that she has a good conversion rate and no one is calling her or them out – so its business as usual”.

ABSOLUTE Radio DJ Andy Bush has revealed heartless scammers have stolen his elderly parents’ life savings.

In total, the devastated couple, both 78, were swindled out of £16,000 in an elaborate scheme that used Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis‘s trusted name to entice them.

A ‘broker’ going by the name of ‘John’ gained Andy’s dad’s trust after he clicked into an online link promising to maximise his savings. In reality, Good Morning Britain star Martin had no affiliation with the advert at all.

Andy, who hosts Hometime with Bush & Richie, told The Sun: “They’re really humiliated.

“My dad’s an ex-computer programmer, systems analyst. So he feels someone like him, who’s had a job like that, shouldn’t be falling for a scam like this. So they feel very, very humiliated.

“I feel like a lot of their kind of plans and dreams have kind of gone up in smoke a little bit because that little nest egg that they had to go and do nice retirement stuff is now suddenly completely gone.”

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Andy’s dad has memory issues, which his son believes made him more susceptible to the scam. Neither Andy, nor his brother, had any idea his parents were moving around large sums of money, and he believes they were coerced by ‘John’ not to tell anyone.

Once his dad had clicked the dodgy link, a portal opened to ‘John’ who was then on the phone to them “non-stop”.

Andy likened it to a romance scam and said his parents told him they would speak to ‘John’ on the phone two or three times a day.

“Even when it all came to light that it was a scam, my mum still wouldn’t believe that John, lovely John, would do this to them. So, they really bought into him as a person,” said Andy.

‘John’ set up a Revolut account on Andy’s parents behalf and began transferring large chunks of money from their TSB savings account.

He coached them on what to say to TSB agents when they queried the transfers — though Andy is upset that the bank didn’t do more to clamp down on the out of character money movements.

“Every time they transferred a chunk of £5,000, £6,000 or whatever, TSB would phone up and go, ‘just making sure you’re not transferring this to whatever’. And they would say, ‘no, no, it’s for this, that or whatever’,” he said.

‘John’ then instructed them to put an app on each of their phones, which allowed him to have full access to all their details and to see what they were doing on their devices.

He also installed a fake crypto exchange that showed their money rising at an impressive rate when in reality it had all but disappeared.

Eventually, Andy found out something was amiss when his mum asked if she could borrow £4,000 in order to deposit it into her account to pass an ‘anti-money laundering check’.

Alarm bells immediately rang and Andy asked her to show him the email from ‘John’. Upon seeing it, he said he knew “straight away” that it was fraudulent.

In the meantime, ‘John’ had arranged a £4,000 loan with M&S Bank, which led to Andy’s parents having to cancel their cards after multiple payments began to be made on them.

Andy’s intervention didn’t immediately put an end to the scamming.

Two days later, his parents received an email from a fake cryptocurrency loss recovery company that claimed it could recover their stolen money.

The fresh scam asked for forms to be submitted and a £3,000 payment paid. Andy said he believed the original scammers were behind it.

Even though, his parents’ phones have been wiped, he said there are still concerns the scammers have access.

Andy and his parents have now instructed CEL Solicitors who specialise in recouping money lost to fraud and have contacted the police.

CEL told him that they deal with 500 such cases a month and some £500m is stolen from people each year in total.

He said: “I’ve had so many messages from people who have not just had their parents scammed like this, but a woman in her 30s was scammed out of money when her baby was seven days old because she wasn’t concentrating properly and just pressed the button. You know, young people, old people.

“My mum and dad don’t know who to trust now.

“It’s brought up some really horrible conversations. My mum and dad have always been very outgoing and doing different things, and they’ve always got plans and all that kind of stuff. Now they have to run pretty much everything past me and my brother just to double-check that they’re not being scammed again.”