The Traitors UK reveals ‘sickening’ moment he lost £40,000 in heartbreaking scam

The Traitors UK star Sam has opened up about a ‘gut-wrenching’ scam which lost him £40,000.

‘I wanted to talk to you about something that happened this year, which was gut-wrenching and really difficult to deal with.

‘I was scammed out of a life-changing amount of money, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot since, and some of the reasons I haven’t spoken about it. There’s a lot of shame, embarrassment, there’s disappointment, there’s general privacy,’ he said.

After debating whether to open up about his experience publicly, he decided it would be ‘selfish’ not to share, in the hopes of warning others who could be susceptible to the same scam.

He said: ‘It was a Sunday afternoon and I have a rule that I don’t answer the phone to any number which I don’t have saved, and that way I avoid a potential fraudster getting in touch with me. [The scammers] got me to ring them.’

After receiving a few text messages from what looked like a verified banking number, warning him of an account breach regarding his cryptocurrency, he decided to give them a ring.

On the phone, he says they were ‘able to replicate my account page when I was looking at the account’ without offering up any passwords or codes.

Using ‘fear tactics’ to get Sam to move his money, he explained that he had ‘several different investments across the accounts and lost all of them.’

‘They took me through one by one and said they need all of this for our insurance case. There was the most sickening moment when Alex, my wife, came in and she googled the number that I had rang, it just said, red flag, UK phishing number, scam, do not call,’ he shared.

‘My heart just fell through the floor. By that point, it was too late; they’d emptied everything, they hung up, I tried to ring back, couldn’t get through and panic just set in. This was £40,000, I’m talking lifesavings.’

Growing emotional, he spoke about the impact of all that money just being ‘gone in an instant’.

Sam immediately contacted the police, who gave an eerie warning that it’s ‘not a matter of if you get scammed, it’s when’ with the frequency of fraud cases.

Despite a case being logged, he confirmed nothing has come of it, and he has now spent months trying ‘to emotionally get over it’, even putting a plea to his followers for any ideas on how he could ‘recoup’ at least some of the money.

Sharing that he didn’t want this to come across as a ‘woe is me’ tale, he reiterated just how widespread and ‘sophisticated’ scammers are becoming.

‘It really wrecks you. I was in a really bad way. It’s not just money and that much money is a life-changing amount of money to anyone and it’s just getting more and more common,’ he added.

Before concluding on a final message urging people to ‘double check’ before picking up the phone.

Many have flocked to the comments to share their support.

Traitors winner Stephen said: ‘Sam, I’m both heartbroken and furious that you’ve gone through this, it’s honestly devastating to know that what you’ve spent your life putting away for your family can be taken away from you in an instant.’

Co-star Amanda shared she was ‘absolutely gutted’ for him, and finalist Jade echoed that it was ‘utterly gut-wrenching’.

Judy told him he was ‘so brave for speaking out’ while Jessie said it was ‘just awful’ and Dr Ellie agreed: ‘So sorry that happened to you Sam, that completely sucks’.