A tourist travelling in Greece has revealed how a cunning thief stole her identity and emptied her bank account of more than $15,000 after she made a stupid mistake.
“If you’re thinking of going on holiday with the girls or the boys this summer, don’t make the same mistake I did!” Lydia Coates implored in a TikTok video posted on June 27. “A simple mistake in Zante cost me over £12,242 (US$15,626).”
In the four-minute video, which was recently deleted, the British woman explained the moment she realised her phone and licence were missing.
Coates traveled to the Greek island in 2022 with her close friend, where they embarked on a booze-fueled cruise.
Before boarding the party boat, Coates packed a small bag containing her phone, ID, bank cards and cash. She claims the bag remained with her throughout the excursion.
“The only time I didn’t have my bag with me was when I was at sea, but my friend was still on the boat so she had it,” she said.
However, when she returned aboard the ship, her phone was not in her bag.
Coates became frantic because her driver’s license was attached to her device, so she immediately asked the cruise ship’s DJ to alert the ship’s 50 guests if they had seen it.
Unfortunately, no one handed over their phone, so the tour organizers agreed to search everyone’s personal belongings.
“I felt at peace because if someone stole it, they would find it,” Coates recalled.
But that calm was short-lived because the organizers could not find anything.
After returning to land, Coates used a friend’s device to check his online bank accounts, which appeared intact.
He froze his bank accounts and remained optimistic.
“And lo and behold, when I got home, I checked my mobile banking and a unique bank transfer of £12,242 (US$15,626) had been sent to a person called Jessica,” she said.
“My biggest mistake over the holidays was putting my driver’s license on the back of my phone,” she explained. “My birthday, on my driver’s license on the back of my phone, was my password and also my online banking password.”
Coates was devastated that her year-long savings had disappeared, so she contacted the police department in Zante, Greece, and the trip organizers, who she says were “not helpful at all.”
The TikToker took matters into her own hands and located her phone via “Find My iPhone.”
She discovered that she had ended up in Birmingham, England, but when she shared this information with the authorities, they did not offer her the help she had hoped for.
In the end, she had to set up an identity fraud protection plan because the thief had access to everything on her phone, from her photos to her online banking data. They also had her driver’s license.
“So now, for the rest of my life, I’m paying for identity fraud protection because this person could take out as many loans and mortgages as they want with my information,” Coates said.
She now urges others to make money from it and avoid keeping personal items, such as a driver’s license, in their phone case.
“The moral of the story is don’t keep your ID in the back of your phone case if you’re going on holiday or any other time,” he added.
It has also long been advised to use PIN numbers and passwords that are not related to your birth data.
Meanwhile, in a follow-up video, Coates revealed that he had his money refunded after endless meetings with the bank and police officials, according to the Daily Mail.
“In my case, they got away with it, they got the money because I recovered the money from the fraud protection and not from the person themselves,” Coates said.
