Esta scam leaves victims targeted by criminals for months

Esta scam victims become targets for further fraud

Lisa Riley thought she was applying for a genuine Esta before a trip to the US last year.

The Emmerdale actor found a site through a Google search, entered her passport, bank and personal details, and waited for a confirmation that normally arrives within the hour.

However, the confirmation never came.

When Riley emailed the address she had paid, she received a reply containing a link to a garbled, nonsensical webpage, and realised she had been scammed.

She had fallen for one of a growing number of Esta scam websites mimicking the official process run by US Customs and Border Protection, according to The Guardian.

Why Esta scam victims are repeatedly targeted

Riley lost £16, the Esta fee at the time, but that was only the start.

Scam calls and texts have arrived most weeks in the 17 months since, often from someone posing as her bank.

"Calls are once a week, easy, sometimes twice a week," she says. "And the texts even more often."

But Riley is not alone.

Research from Nationwide Building Society suggests 15% of people have given personal information to someone who later turned out not to be genuine, leaving them open to future fraud.

"Criminals do sadly retarget people after an initial scam," says Nationwide's head of fraud, Annya Burskys.