Evil fraudster told me ‘I was making my dead dad proud’ while stealing THOUSANDS from my bank account in vile scam

A TEEN mourning the loss of his father was scammed out of his life savings by an evil fraudster who told him he was “making his dad proud”.

Max Greenhalgh, 19, was struggling to deal with his father’s “unimaginable” death in September last year.

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He was targeted by the scammer on Instagram just over three months later.

“I’d made a promise to myself that I was going to make my dad proud and started my own business day trading on foreign exchange markets,” he said.

Max, from Chorley in Lancashire, spent hundreds of hours researching the subject.

He explained: “The scammer reached out to me, offering mentorship and promising me crazy numbers if I worked with him.

“He offered to take me under his wing and blasted me with pictures of him travelling the world with his girlfriend and with nice cars.

“I opened up to him about my dad and shared all aspects of my life with him. He told me he’d help me make my dad proud.

“I trusted him so much – more than a mentor, he posed as my friend.”

Over two weeks in January, Max ploughed £4,750 into a crypto wallet he believed was funding what turned out to be a fake trading account set up by the scammer.

He described the moment the fraudster came clean in a text message as “earth-shattering”.

It read: “I’m sorry, I’ve done you dirty, this was all a lie and I’m keeping all the money.

“I hope life gives you the best of it, keep trading, you’ll be amazing one day. I’m very sorry, you seem like a nice guy.”

“I felt like I’d let down my mum, my little sister, my girlfriend,” said Max, who was 18 at the time.

“I was so thoroughly embarrassed. I felt stupid and worthless. He left with zero pounds in my bank account.”

He also had to sell his father’s treasured BMW 3 series, which he had vowed to keep on despite crippling monthly insurance payments.

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Max has now enlisted specialist fraud solicitors Richardson Hartley Law to help recover the money from his bank, Santander.

When Max, a straight-A student, started trading he set up an account with a broker.

But the scammer encouraged him to use a different broker and offered to set up an account for him.

He gave Max access to the account and told him to fund it with Bitcoin deposits to a crypto wallet.

I was in a vulnerable position and he capitalised on it.

Max Greenhalgh

Max could see the money going into his broker trading account, which had grown to £15,000 after a couple of weeks.

To celebrate, the scammer encouraged Max to buy a new car, a £6,500 2016 Mercedes.

But to get his money out of the account he would need to pay a “tax” of two lots of £800.

“I didn’t have the money, so I ended up borrowing £1,600 off one of my best friends, who grew up very poor and saved every penny that he made,” he said.

“Friday rolls around and I’m about to go and get this new car, and everything’s looking good. I felt amazing about it.”

But half an hour before he was due to collect the car, for which his girlfriend had paid a £100 non refundable deposit, Max’s world fell apart with the scammer’s bombshell text message.

The broker trading account had been fake and the money in it entirely fictitious.

Max has worked seven days a week in a call centre to clear some of his debts.