Sandra Bradshaw, 38, lost £11,000 to fraudsters who turned up at her front door
Samantha Bradshaw, 38, lost thousands to scammers(Image: Samantha Bradshaw / SWNS)
A mother-of-two lost £11,000 after fraudsters posing as bank managers and police officers turned up at her front door. Samantha Bradshaw, 38, had her accounts emptied after she fell victim to a courier scam in October 2025.
She believed she was speaking to NatWest’s fraud team and Merseyside Police after receiving a call informing her that two men had been arrested for cloning her card. In order to keep them in custody, they required her bank cards as evidence.
Samantha agreed, and within minutes a man arrived at her home in Alfreton, Derbyshire, and she was instructed to hand over the cards and provide a safe word. The fraudsters kept Samantha on the phone for several hours, persuading her to change all her passwords, while also telling her they would be transferring her account to a stage three security risk.
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It was only when Samantha’s husband, Alec, 40, rang one of their children’s phones to tell her all the money had disappeared from their accounts that she realised what had happened.
Upon hearing Alec on the other phone, the scammers immediately hung up. Fortunately, NatWest fully reimbursed Samantha and Alec four days later.
Samantha, a catering assistant, said: “It was the worst experience I’ve ever been through. I don’t want anyone to go through it. I felt stupid and embarrassed.
“They took everything and then an extra £1,000 on top. Someone had been to the house – they now know our address. That sheer panic of realising what I’d done.”
Samantha received a call around 4pm in October 2025, from what she believed to be the NatWest fraud team. She said: “He was called Elliott and he was very polite and well spoken.
“They’d been alerted because two people had been arrested for duplicating my cards and trying to use them in a BMW dealership. They had a police officer from Merseyside headquarters on the line who was happy to speak to me.
“He told me his name was sergeant Brian Matthews, but to keep these men in custody they needed my bank cards as evidence. I questioned how I was going to get my bank cards to them, and they said they could get courier services in place.
“They gave me crime reference numbers too. The sergeant that I spoke to said, ‘just to prove this number is real, put it in your Google search, it will come up with Merseyside headquarters’ and it did, so I had that confirmation.”
After a white Toyota turned up and Samantha gave the safe word of ‘Timothy’, her cards were taken.
She said: “The whole time I’m still on the phone with Elliott. They then went through all my passwords to make sure they were all changed.
“Then he said I needed to login into my NatWest banking app and they were going to put me on a stage 3 security risk. So, every time I send money, I would get a text to check if I wanted to pay. A transaction for Selfridges for £4,000 came through – which he said was a dummy transaction.
“Then another £4,000 transaction came through on these texts – but the other transactions I did recognise. He kept saying they were examples. Unbeknownst to me, that was me authorising those transactions. He then said the cards had arrived at the police station.”
‘He said ‘sweetheart, the money’s gone.’ Then the line went dead’
At this point, Alec, who was working abroad at the time, rang one of their children’s phones to get hold of Samantha. Shortly after this, the scammers hung up.
She said: “After three and a half hours the NatWest guy told me I’d need to logout to set up a new customer number.
“As we came up to the four-hour mark, Alec rings me to say all the money in both my son’s account and the spending and bills accounts, had been moved into the main account and that’s what they’d taken.
Samantha Bradshaw, 38, lost thousands in a banking scam(Image: Samantha Bradshaw / SWNS)
“They emptied the lot. He said ‘sweetheart, the money’s gone.’ Then the line went dead. It was hitting and smacking me all at once. Alec told me to call the police immediately and I did.
“And when I said someone had been to the house, the operator told me to lock all the doors and that they could come back.”
Thankfully, Samantha’s ordeal was over four days later when she received all of the money back from NatWest.
Samantha said: “They paid it all back and I couldn’t believe it because I’d authorised those transactions. We had come to the acceptance that we’d have to start again but NatWest fraud reimbursed it all. I am under the impression that they don’t call us.
“It’s down to you to see that suspicious activity. Again, with the police, it’s up to you to call them.
“I don’t think scams are spoken about enough. The reason I’m talking about it is that I was lucky enough to be reimbursed.”
A spokesperson for Derbyshire Police, said: “Banks and the police will never call you to verify your PIN. They won’t ask you to withdraw money or buy or send items on their behalf for investigations. Hang up if you get a call like this.
“Always verify suspicious calls by contacting the organisation using a trusted phone number. Calling 159 will put you through to your bank. If calling back from a landline after a suspicious call, wait a few minutes as criminals may stay on the line after you hang up. Alternatively, use a different phone line to call your bank.
“Never transfer money or make purchases on behalf of someone you don’t know. If it’s an emergency, call the police on 999.
“Report suspicious activity to Report Fraud, the UK’s national cyber crime and fraud reporting service.”