A star appearing on the upcoming season of Celebrity Traitors has revealed how the show stopped her getting scammed.
Earlier this year the line-up for the first celebrity version of BBC’s hit game show was announced – with those taking part including Stephen Fry, Alan Carr, Paloma Faith, Charlotte Church and Jonathan Ross.
A total of 19 presenters, actors, singers, comedians and sportsmen will be part of the series, due to air in autumn.
They also include Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway – who is a ‘huge fan’ of the show.
However, during a discussion about scams on Wednesday’s episode of her BBC Breakfast programme, Kate revealed how being on Celebrity Traitors also ensured she didn’t lose thousands when being targeted by a scam.
Kate explained that how when she was on the way to film the series, she received an unsettling phone call.
‘I was on the runway ready to fly to the castle and I got a phone call saying, “Did you spend nearly £8,000 at Jacksonville voters at 2am this morning”, and I said, “Absolutely not!”,’ she said.
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The bank then told Kate they’d frozen her account as she’d been hacked and a victim of fraud.
Understandably stressed about what she was being told, Kate then explained to the bank she was about to take off but was advised to immediately contact all her other accounts as they would be linked and accessible.
Kate went on: ‘I told them I was about to take off so I can’t and then, when we landed, there was a producer there ready to take my phone off me as we weren’t allowed phones or internet while filming. I told them I’d been a victim of fraud.
‘I had pockets of cash as I was paying off debt at the time, but normally there would have been no money to take out of my account.
‘I was really panicking, and I quickly texted someone at the bank saying what happened and asking them to check and they quickly texted back asking the name of the person who called.’
However, after producers allowed Kate to keep her phone for a bit longer to sort the situation out, she made another call to the bank, who alerted her to the fact her accounts were safe and not to share any of her log-in details.
‘If I’d given them details of my other bank accounts they would have emptied it all, and they had done so with the other account.
‘So, I think I am the only person in the world to have been saved by Traitors!’
Kate explained the initial call had sounded genuine and how they’d had ‘the number, the name and the details of my account already’.
‘They were saying, “Do it now because otherwise this is going to happen to your other accounts”. Yeah so I genuinely felt the fear,’ she added.
While Kate managed to avoid losing her money, her GMB colleague wasn’t so lucky. Before Kate shared her story, North American Correspondent Noel Phillips revealed he was scammed out of his entire life savings.
Appearing on the show via video link from New York, Noel explained how scammers pretended to be from Chase Bank and told them his account had been compromised.
Although he eventually realised it was a scam, it was too late and his savings totalling around $30,000 (£22,000) had been stolen.
Holding back tears, he shared: ‘I’m still in disbelief. I remember two weeks ago I was lying here in my kitchen on the floor numb and refusing to accept that I did something so stupid.
‘I felt embarrassed, I felt ashamed, I felt worthless and on top of that the excruciating pain of all of this is the mental trauma.
‘The fact that I for the last couple of days wake up in the middle of the night, pick up my phone and open my banking app in hopes that this was all a twisted reality. “How could someone like me who reports stories like this fall victim? How could this happen to me?”,’ he recalled thinking.
He then said that his bank had ‘turned its back’ on him and had refused to help him recoup the money.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV1. Celebrity Traitors airs on BBC later this year.
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