I thought being scammed once made me immune to it happening again. I was wrong | Lindy Ralph

These dodgy operators are very good at the shady work they do: they crank up the terror, drown out the logical part of your brain and then move fast

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or the second time in the space of three years, I was sitting on my bed screaming, “They’ve stolen all my money.” I feel sick about it. Foolish and ashamed. Within minutes, thousands of dollars were stolen from my accounts, and I won’t be getting it back because I “willingly” gave out my private information.

In 2023 I wrote an article after I fell victim to a Facebook scam and had $1,000 stolen from my bank account. I thought that experience made me immune from it ever happening again. It didn’t and I think I know why.

This time, when I was off sick from work and lying in bed, I received a notification from a trusted app saying my order for a $699 laptop had been processed. Five minutes later I’d lost more than $3,000 from my credit card and savings account combined.