The chilling four words scammer said to me after draining my bank account and leaving my fashion label on the brink

TOP influencer Abbie Blyth has revealed the chilling words a scammer said to her after draining her fashion label's bank account. The 29-year-old, from Glasgow, nearly lost her clothing brand BLY after hackers wiped out the business's cash. The former makeup artist had used £20,000 of her own money to get the label up and running after helping her mum and dad buy a new home. She said she was "quite proud" of the amount of savings she had managed to put away and thought launching BLY would help her to become even more financially stable.

But when the scam happened, it was just five days after she broke up with her ex and had moved out of their house to live with her parents. "It completely wiped out my savings as I had poured everything else into BLY", she previously revealed on BBC show The Agency: Unfiltered. "They took every penny from me, and it put me back in every aspect, in my personal life and my business.". Now, for the first time, Abbie has spoken in detail about how the scam unfolded in 2023.

Appearing on the You and Me podcast, hosted by Scots reality stars Erica Roberts and Meryl Williams, she said: "Somebody kept phoning me and I kept declining. "[Then I got notifications] like your bank asks do you want to accept this transaction. It was like thousands of pounds, I kept putting no. "So then when the bank phoned they were like 'it’s the fraud department' and I was like that makes sense.

"I said ‘I can't speak to you right now, can you wait till I'm home?’ and they were like ‘yeah we'll phone you back’. I should have realised that’s not normal but I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.". She continued: "He was asking me questions that I genuinely thought well how else would he know that. "He was like ‘you transferred this amount of money to Alison Blyth and that's my mum so I was like 'oh yeah, yeah I did on this date at this time'.

"They were online on a laptop with my security questions that the bank would have asked me to log on [and] I was giving them the answers. "They were asking legit questions and then they were like you've got a code. It came through the app, obviously, so I was like this is legit. The guy sounded so legit.". It was at this moment, when she had handed over all the crucial information required, that the scammer dropped his act on the phone.

"I gave him the code and he went 'aye, see you later'", she revealed. "I just remember thinking 'no' and sitting for a couple of seconds like don't open that app. "When I opened my app it [the money] was still there obviously and I just pulled it down to refresh it and it was gone. "There was a tenner left, it was like £9.98.". She added: "It was thousands and thousands. BLY made a lot of money in the first year. I was gobsmacked at how much money BLY made.

"[They took] everything. Gone. Just £9.98 but I mean no money, gone. "When he said 'see you later', I’ll never forget it. I just remember the feeling I got. I thought I was going to pass out.". The scammer, from England, was later snared by police but they were unable to recover the money as it was a banking matter. Sadly, the third-party bank that Abbie had trusted with her business failed to take any action to recoup the money.

"That was it. I just had to accept the fact it was gone" she said. "I’ve never felt lower, there was no way out. BY keeping these tips in mind, you can avoid getting caught up in a scam:. "People were returning things and I had to give them my own money.". Abbie was able to recover her fashion label with the help of her agency bosses Amy Moore, 28, and Kirsten Cameron, 32. The duo, who own influencer agency Aquarius Creative, invested in the business to become her partners.