Yorkshire BBC star 'feels stupid and thick' as he issues scam warning

BBC Radio Humberside newsreader Peter Levy has issued a stark warning after falling victim to a scam that cost him half his life savings.

The 68-year-old described the incident as "so traumatising and upsetting" and admitted he lost sleep over it. The incident, which occurred in early February, is still being resolved.

Speaking to Richard Stead, Levy said: "It is the most horrific, horrific feeling. It's absolutely awful, you feel stupid, you feel thick, you feel... It happened in February and it is still being sorted out. Just this lunchtime I've been to a bank. It's awful, so when people talk about the scams it is dreadful, it's awful."

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During their conversation, Levy and Stead discussed the risks of using easily guessable passwords across all online accounts. Levy confessed: "I'll be honest, I've got the same for everything. I don't use 'Peter1234', it's a lot better than that but it is the same thing and you shouldn't do that. But how do you remember all the different [passwords]? ".

Richard then detailed how some phones suggest useful passwords to use. Peter shared his own experience with scams, stating: "It is so traumatising and upsetting, it's dreadful. You can't sleep, you can't do anything. You feel helpless and I fell for something.."

"It was about 20 past seven in the evening and this is a good one to watch out. They ring up and say things like, 'This is the fraud department of Richard Stead Bank. We've noticed some unusual activity on your account. Have you spent £500 in the last hour? ' And I said, 'No, I haven't spent £500 in the last hour. I've been at work'.", reports Chronicle Live.

The fraudsters then requested Peter to log into his bank account to "do some security checks". Despite having participated in numerous interviews and discussions about scams, he admitted that he "fell for it badly".

He warned: "There are scams going on at the moment and this is a good one to remember. And again, I have to sub it down slightly. The bank has told me this in the last couple of weeks.."

"You go in to a public car park and there's a queue for the pay machine so you want to scan the app on the wall... Don't do that because those are being [used for scams]. Queue, be patient, don't use the app on the wall."

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