Former soldier loses £200,000 in scam involving fraudsters using Rod Stewart’s image
An ex-soldier has been conned out of his life savings by a scammer who used Sir Rod Stewart’s face to advertise a fraudulent investment scheme.
Wayne Westhead, 65, a former British Army Major with 30 years of military service, invested £200,000 into the fraudulent Bitcoin scheme while his wife was battling breast cancer.
Following her diagnosis, Mr Westhead stepped down from his job in order to care for her, and looked for ways to boost his Army pension in order to support the pair of them, the Telegraph reports.
He then spotted an ad on Facebook advertising a Bitcoin investment scheme promising high returns with little to no risk attached, which appeared to be endorsed by Sir Rod Stewart.
After making initial inquiries, the scammers called him back and told Mr Westhead he didn’t need to ‘go in heavy’ and to only invest small sums.
But after being told he had a £600 return on the first month’s investment, he invested an additional £500.
‘Over a period of time, I started investing lots, more than £100,000,’ he told the Telegraph. ‘My wife was, to be honest, not getting any better.’
Despite admitting to feeling ‘out of his depth’, the scammer continued pressuring Mr Westhead to invest in increasingly expensive and elaborate schemes, until he had eventually given them £152,000 of his own money.
Mr Westhead said: ‘He went on to introduce me to “hedge-funding”, I don’t really understand what that was all about, but he said he would get to a level where I would have 50 Bitcoin, and I would be able to draw it out as and when I pleased.’
At the time of his investment, the price of Bitcoin was $8,000, which would have seen his investment return around $400,000.
But unknown to the former soldier, Mr Westhead’s money was not being invested in Bitcoin at all, but going to a ‘ghost account’ which faked an investment while the scammers pocketed the money themselves.
In July 2019, Mr Westhead’s wife died. Shortly afterwards, he was diagnosed with two types of cancer himself.
But the scammers, seizing on his vulnerability, pressured him to keep investing more and more. During that time, he made a final investment of £20,000.
When he tried to access his investment, the fraudsters said he needed to pay another £150,000 to ‘unlock’ his holdings, and at this point the penny finally dropped for the grieving husband.
After researching the company, Mr Westhead found testimony from a number of others who had fallen victim to the scammers and lost their savings.
‘He had me basically where he wanted me, which was helpless,’ he said. ‘I was left with nothing. I said to him: “I know what you’ve done. You’ve done this. I don’t believe to this day that the Bitcoin made money or that the money I invested went anywhere near Bitcoin.
‘I was so disappointed in myself, for what I’d done, to my kids and everything else. I still had a mortgage on my house, which I had to clear.’
He added: ‘This went on for about four years. They did not do this overnight, they took a lot of effort and time.’
Mr Westhead eventually regained his lost savings after lawyers argued his bank had not done enough to protect him (Picture: Facebook)
The veteran still has an Army pension, but was terrified he would have to return to the workplace despite his health battles.
But remarkably, he was eventually able to get his money back after contracting a law firm on a no-win no-fee basis.
Mr Westhead’s lawyers successfully argued that Nationwide, his building society, had taken insufficient steps to protect his financial interests, and that they had not taken into account the challenging life conditions he was facing when he fell prey to the scam.
In total, he managed to regain his £152,000 investment back, plus £45,000 in interest that he would have received had he left the money in his savings account.
Mr Westhead said: ‘I’ve learnt my lesson, and it will never happen to me again, that’s for sure. I am a little bit embarrassed.’
But he added: ‘I am more than happy for people to hear my story, and hopefully it will help them not to get involved.’
A Nationwide spokesman said: ‘Investment scams can be incredibly sophisticated and cause victims lasting worry and stress. Cases like these are never simple and often have many complex factors which need consideration. We review all fraud cases carefully and where there are mitigating circumstances we review as appropriate.’
Sir Rod Stewart had no knowledge his likeness was being used in the scheme and did not participate in any way.
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