Businesswoman reveals banking scam saw her lose £100k despite transferring cash within RBS Group

The now familiar ruse of cold callers posing as the bank’s anti-fraud staff convinced Emma Watson to transfer cash into accounts controlled by Natwest’s parent company Royal Bank of Scotland.

She lost £104,000 as a result of the incident involving organised criminals based in Scotland.

Ms Watson was called at home one morning by someone claiming to be from NatWest’s fraud department who instructed her that they had detected attempts to withdraw money from her account and she should move the contents of the account into another one.

Ms Watson, from Kingston in Surrey, had the large sum in her account as she was about to begin a business by setting up a nursery in an old church.

She was told by a woman with a Scottish accent to transfer cash into temporary accounts in her name until a new one could be set up.

The phone calls continued, with further urgent instructions, and over a three-day period the couple made nine transfers.

By the time she realised it was a con, the accounts into which she had transferred the cash had been drained of the £104,000 – despite the fact that all but two of the transfers had gone into RBS accounts.

The “vishing” con exploits banks’ “faster payments” systems which allow the instant transfer of money using just a sort code and account number. Few people realise that the recipient’s name is irrelevant when you make a payment using this method.

“There was a lot of money in there and I wanted to safeguard it,” Ms Watson said. “She sounded professional, saying all the right reassuring words and seemed to be compassionate for the situation. She knew my name and where I banked. I don’t give out my landline number and I didn’t think twice that she wasn’t who she said she was.”

She added: “On eleven frantic phone calls to various call centres and numbers, no one transferred me to a fraud specialist or even confirmed if I had been a victim of fraud.”

“My father also made a concerted effort to reach the bank and was promised a call back that never came.”

Mr Watson, a marketing director and a customer of NatWest for 40 years, said: “NatWest allowed its own customers to rob me. The whole fraud-reporting process was inefficient and inconclusive.”

The case has now been passed from London’s Metropolitan Police to Police Scotland.

Ms Watson eventually got £30,000 back, but had to rely on a crowdfunding drive and loans from friends to replace the lost money and build the nursery.

The business is now up and running, but Ms Watson said the scam had left her with a mountain to climb.

A spokesman for NatWest said: “We take our customers’ security very seriously.”

Police Scotland declined to comment as there is an ongoing inquiry.