'He lied to my face': Basildon Facebook marketplace scammer steals £1,450 camera
Liam Hopper, 31, said the con had a 'massive impact' on his livelihood as a photographer after he fell victim to a man using a fake banking app to pay for the camera before vanishing and deleting his Facebook account.
Despite being savvy to online scams, Liam said the man's friendliness in person when he came to collect the camera skewed his judgement when he handed it over.
Impact - Liam is a videographer and photographer by trade and says the loss of the camera means he will have to take out a loan to replace it and keep working (Image: Liam Hopper)
Liam said: "When he arrived we went into my garage so he could check the camera, he told me he didn't know much about them and he was buying it as a gift for his girlfriend.
"He agreed to buy it and brought up a mobile banking app, I entered my details and it all came up correctly with the right bank; it didn't set off any alarm bells.
"We waited for five minutes and nothing happened, I said I can't let you take it without the money.
"I didn't realise when I gave my bank details it was a foreign bank account, at the bottom it said transactions can take between one and two working days.
"I thought it will pop in on Monday and let him walk away with the camera, but as time went by I began to think 'what have I done?'"
"Sure enough I went on Facebook to message him and the account was gone, as was the number he rang me on."
Theft - The moment the man walks away with the camera knowing the money won't go through (Image: Liam Hopper)
Following the incident on Sunday, Liam has reported the incident to police and is now urging residents to be aware.
Liam added: "It's my livelihood. My business insurance won't cover it because it's classed as deception rather than theft, if he had prized it out of my hands I would be able to get my money back.
"I will have to take out a loan to be able to do my job. Losing the money isn't the most aggravating thing, if I had dropped it and it smashed I could put it down to bad luck but he came into my house and lied to my face."
"I recognise online scams all the time, I've grown up with the internet; but I suppose having met and spoken with him I let my guard down.
"I'll never use Facebook again, there's no recourse against these scammers on their platform, zero accountability."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Walsall's Jellis charged with betting breaches
Walsall midfielder Jamie Jellis has been charged with misconduct for allegedly breaching the Football Association's rules on betting. The 24-year-old is accused of placing a total of 2,248 bets on matches between 30 April 2019 and 4 July 2023. All the alleged bets took place before he joined the Saddlers from Tamworth, then in National League North, in January 2024. After leaving Stevenage in 2020, Jellis spent four years in non-league before getting another chance in the English Football League with Walsall. He has made 57 appearances for the Saddlers, scoring seven goals. Jellis has until 29 July to respond to the charge. "We will be supporting Jamie throughout the process," said a brief Walsall statement on the matter.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Farage counter-protester claims at asylum hotel are ‘categorically wrong', Police say
Police say claims that officers 'bussed' counter-demonstrators to a protest outside a hotel housing asylum seekers, are 'categorically wrong'. Essex Police have denied the claims circulating on social media; claims of which Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said that the force's chief constable should resign for. A series of demonstrations took place outside the Bell Hotel in Epping since asylum seeker Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, was charged with sexual assault after an incident earlier this month, in which he is alleged to have attempted to kiss a 14-year-old girl. The force said the protests began peacefully but 'escalated to the point of disorder and criminal damage', with eight officers injured at one demonstration outside the hotel on Thursday evening and five men charged with disorder at the protests. Alongside footage shared in a post on X, the Clacton MP said: 'This video proves @EssexPoliceUK transported left-wing protesters to the Bell Hotel in Epping. There is no way Chief Constable BJ Harrington can stay in position.' 🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨 This video proves @EssexPoliceUK transported left-wing protestors to The Bell hotel in is no way Chief Constable BJ Harrington can stay in position. — Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) July 23, 2025 But in a statement released shortly afterwards, a force spokesperson said: 'There are claims on social media that Essex Police officers 'bussed' protesters to the protest outside the Bell Hotel on Thursday July 17. 'This is categorically wrong. 'Officers did provide a foot cordon around protesters on their way to the protest, where they and others were allowed to exercise their right to protest. 'Later, some people who were clearly at risk of being hurt were also escorted by vehicle away from the area for their safety. 'To reiterate, we categorically did not drive any counter-protesters to the site on any occasion.' In an update to the gathered media in Chelmsford, Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington said Essex Police had made 10 arrests following the protests. He said: 'I want to thank the people of Epping, I want to thank the people of Essex. 'I also want to thank all those who have turned up to protest and express their views peacefully and lawfully, because there have been many of those. 'What has been unacceptable has been the people who have come to Epping and committed violence, who have attacked people who work at the hotel, who have attacked officers, who have damaged property and who have caused fear and disruption to the people of Epping.' Mr Harrington said the force were aware of 'a couple' of protests being advertised and discussed over the coming week, and that it had a robust operation in place. 'It's abOut communities. It's about protecting communities, whoever they are,' he added. Kebatu denied the sexual assault charge when he appeared at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court on Thursday. Jonathan Glover, 47, of Springfields, Waltham Abbey, Stuart Williams, 36, of Duck Lane, Thornwood, Epping, Keith Silk, 33, of Torrington Drive, Loughton, and Dean Smith, 51, of Madells, Epping, have been charged with violent disorder in connection with the protests and are due to appear at the same court on August 18, Essex Police said on Tuesday. A fifth man, Joe McKenna, 34, of Highcliffe Road, Wickford, is charged with failing to remove a face covering when told to do so and remains on bail until a hearing at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court on September 24. Essex Police previously said the cost of policing the incidents in Epping over the last week had reached £100,000.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
UK Supreme Court quashes convictions of 2 bank traders after deciding their trials were unfair
LONDON (AP) — Britain's Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed the convictions of two financial market traders accused of manipulating benchmark interest rates in one of the biggest scandals to come out of the global financial crisis in 2008. The charges against Tom Hayes, a former Citigroup and UBS trader, and Carlo Palombo, who worked for Barclays, centered around alleged efforts to influence the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate, or Libor, and its euro currency equivalent Euribor, which were used to set the interest rates on trillions of dollars of loans and other financial products around the world. The court ruled that the convictions of Hayes and Palombo were unfair because the judges in their separate cases gave inaccurate instructions to jurors. That effectively prevented jurors from considering the key question of whether the traders had acted dishonestly. 'That misdirection undermined the fairness of the trial,' Judge George Leggatt wrote in an 82-page decision backed by all five members of the panel that heard the case. Hayes was convicted in August 2015 and sentenced to a maximum of 14 years in prison, which was later reduced to 11 years. Palombo, convicted in March 2019, was sentenced to four years in prison. Both men were released in 2021. 'It destroyed my family, I missed most of my son's childhood,' Hayes told the BBC. 'For so long I've been an international fugitive … and now I can move on with my life, or try to,' he added. The decision came after the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeal in 2022 overturned the convictions of two traders charged with similar crimes in the United States. Hayes and Palombo, whose appeals were repeatedly rejected by British judges, were allowed to take their case to the U.K. Supreme Court after that ruling. The U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office began investigating alleged efforts to manipulate Libor in 2012. That ultimately led to the conviction of nine bankers. 'We have considered this judgment and the full circumstances carefully and determined it would not be in the public interest for us to seek a retrial,' the SFO said in response to the Supreme Court ruling. Libor and Euribor were critical benchmarks that were once used to set the interest rates on everything from business loans to home mortgages and credit card debts. As a result, they also became central to more complex financial transactions such as those used by banks and businesses to bet on interest rate fluctuations. The benchmarks were vulnerable to manipulation because they were set by banks that could profit from swings in interest rates. Each day, major international banks were asked to submit the interest rate at which they could borrow money from other banks. An average of those submissions was then used to set the daily Libor and Euribor rates. During the financial crisis, regulators became aware that some banks were making artificially low Libor submissions to make their institutions seem more creditworthy. Some traders also sought to influence the submissions made by their banks as even small moves in the benchmark rates could boost their profits. Those risks became even more pronounced during the financial crisis, when lending dried up and bankers had to base their daily submissions on a subjective assessment of the market rather than actual loans. Libor and Euribor were phased out in recent years, in part because they were seen as worsening the financial crisis. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
