'I was in despair' Loan of phone leads to loss of life savings

Akind gesture resulted ina thief spending 9,000 on the victim's card before using her Uber account to travel to Stansted.

- Miles Brignall

If you are one of those people who keeps their debit card in their mobile phone case, has a note of their pin on their handset, or only ever uses mobile banking, you may want to rethink your setup when you read the case of Sami Souret*.

On a recent night out the 28-year-old healthcare professional was kind enough to help a man who asked to borrow her mobile phone. Less than six hours later her £9,350 life savings had been spent by him on Apple products in London. And the final indignity: he used her Uber account to take a taxi to Stansted airport.

Her case, which could almost be used by schools to teach young people how not to expose themselves to financial risk, started on a very late Friday night with friends in London.

While she was waiting for her 5am taxi to come and take her home, she got chatting with a man who asked if he could use her mobile, saying his had stopped working. Having unlocked her iPhone she handed it over. What happened next is a bit of a blur, she says, but it now appears she was distracted by his accomplice. When she turned around, her new friend and her phone had gone along with her Metro Bank debit card which she carried in her phone case.

Quite why she didn't call the bank that night to try to cancel the bank card is unclear - drink, she admits, had been taken - but when she woke up she says she called Metro Bank to explain what had happened.