One text message that led a nurse to give away her entire life savings

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A vulnerable nurse has spoken of how she was swindled out of her entire retirement savings by fraudsters. Pauline Padden, a children's critical care nurse at Alder Hey in Liverpool, was preyed upon by scammers via text when dealing with her mother's illness in hospital and facing financial concerns about how to meet mortgage payments.

In a new The Pensions Regulator (TPR) campaign video, the 60-year-old shared her harrowing experience: "I received a text asking if I have any inactive pensions and if I would like to reinvest them to get a better return, and for doing this, I would receive a gift.

I had been in hospital that day visiting my mum and I knew that my mum was near the end, we only had a couple of weeks really and I thought if I wanted to take this time off with my mum how was I going to pay the mortgage?," reports the Liverpool Echo. READ MORE: Body found at Ashton Canal near Etihad Stadium - latest updates “So I thought if I can move them I can kill two birds with one stone, get them to a better place and get a better return for myself and also receive these gifts which will keep me while I'm just being with my mum. "It was like heaven sent because I was in a predicament and this was going to help me out." Engaging with the convincing scammer, Ms Padden spoke to the man on the phone and even received documentation about how to improve returns on her pension investment, including the promise of a 10% value back as a gift.

She recounted how she initially transferred £25,000 and got £2,500 back, unaware that the 'gift' was actually siphoned from her own pension.