Gloria Hunniford feels "violated" after having £120,000 stolen from her bank account.
The 76-year-old presenter fell victim to fraud after a scammer walked into a Santander branch in Croydon with her ‘grandson’ and ‘daughter’ pretending to be the elderly star and conned the cashier into releasing the money and, despite getting her money back, Gloria is still upset.
She told the Daily Mirror: "Now I’ve lost trust in all banks.
"I feel violated. Someone said to me: ‘Well, you got the money back. Why are you worried?’ But it’s the principle of the thing.
"You may think your money is safe in a bank but it’s not. Banks have no interest to give anybody these days, so the only thing they have to give is trustability, credibility and loyalty.
"If my husband or one of my sons went up to the bank and said they wanted to be a co-signatory on my account, they would be told it doesn’t work like that. I would need to give written permission, the signature would have to tie up. But not in this case."
A Santander spokeswoman said: "As soon as we identified this fraudulent activity we alerted the authorities as well as Ms Hunniford herself.
"We are very sympathetic to the distress caused to Ms Hunniford for being the victim of a scam.
"We have also made significant improvements to our processes."
Police are still searching for Gloria’s "lookalike" and her daughter, while her pretend grandson Alan Dowie, 18, was spared jail and received a suspended sentence.
Reyon Dillon, of Croydon, who admitted laundering £19,000 of the cash, will be sentenced on September 7.
Gloria Hunniford feels ‘violated’ after 120k scam
