Ruby Robinson always looks forward to putting her feet up in front of a film at the end of a long day in her job as a credit analyst.
So when a text message popped up on the mother-of-two’s phone in March that appeared to come from the jobs website Reed advertising work as a freelance movie reviewer, she was instantly intrigued.
Ruby, 38, had signed up to the site and updated her status to ‘looking for part-time work’ at the beginning of the year to make extra income outside her office hours.
She had received several texts from the company but so far no vacancies that would have fitted around her busy schedule of juggling a full-time job and looking after two teenagers.
But getting paid to watch and review films sounded ideal.
The working hours were flexible and it claimed you could make up to £200 a day.
She replied to the text message and received a message on WhatsApp from a woman called Julia, who claimed that she worked at Vue Cinemas.
She explained that Ruby would be working for Vue Cinemas, using ‘affiliated platform’ Google Movie Reviews, to complete ‘daily tasks’. Each task would take 20 to 30 minutes and pay between £30 and £40.
Ruby, from Milton Keynes, signed up. But unknown to her, she had been targeted by a growing scam that police forces across the country have issued warnings about in recent months.
Within ten weeks, she would lose her life savings and be bullied into borrowing money from family and friends in a deceit that left her ostracised from her loved ones.
You can earn money reviewing films online via genuine platforms such as UK Film Review, which pays recognised writers £3 per review of short and indie films.
However, most roles will require you to demonstrate that you are a good writer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of films and TV series.
After registering on what she now suspects was a fake platform called Google Movie Reviews and providing her personal details, Ruby started to complete tasks.
This involved clicking on images of film posters, such as Barbie, and clicking complete.
She was not asked to write anything about the films or watch them. The money she had earned added up in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
At the end of the first day, Ruby cashed out her first commission and £300 was paid into her bank account. She says: ‘The job seemed easy. I had received the money so thought, “Let’s carry on”.’
Ruby was added to a WhatsApp group where she could share her experience with 40 other new recruits. Many appeared, from their profile pictures, to be parents, too.
Ruby says: ‘Everyone was introducing themselves and seemed friendly. Now I look back, I don’t know if they were genuine people but it seemed very real at the time.’
When logging on to her Google Movie Review account a day later, Ruby was asked to deposit £50 into her account to be able to start her tasks and was told she would receive it back when she cashed out her commission.
She says: ‘It didn’t seem like too much and it was worth it – I had received £300 the day before.’
Ruby was told she had to pay to unlock the ability to review certain film titles that paid a larger commission.
She says: ‘I paid between £400 and £500 to unlock quite a few films because I thought I was getting the money back. The commission was in line with the demand for the film I was told, and my total earnings were growing.
‘Then it got really expensive. It should have been a red flag but they do it so gradually that at no stage did I think something was wrong.’
Ruby was told she could not cash out her earnings until she completed 30 tasks but the final few cost far more to unlock.
‘One cost £17,000 but at this point I had put so much money into it and could see I was owed £40,000 so I decided to try to raise the cash. I was struggling to find money because I had used my savings and borrowed from friends.’
To review her final film, called Barbarian, Ruby was told she would have to pay £23,547 but that she would receive the money back and £1,633 in commission.
She says: ‘In the WhatsApp group, everyone said they’d been through the same struggle but got their money back. I was desperately trying to raise the money because I had already put so much in. I struggled but managed to pay it.’
Yet Ruby’s relief turned to horror when she was told that since her commission was worth £50,000 she would need to complete an extra five tasks.
‘I told the company I’d exhausted every possible means. I took out loans and couldn’t carry on. They said they could give me a 50 per cent discount. But there was still over £14,503 to pay.
‘I could tell something wasn’t right so I messaged Julia and said, “I don’t feel comfortable and I feel like I’m being scammed”. She said, “How could I scam you, you could choose to sue us”.’
By this point Ruby had used £10,000 from her savings, taken out two loans worth £10,000, put £5,000 on her credit card and borrowed £4,500 from two friends.
Desperate for answers, Ruby took to the WhatsApp group where others said they’d had similar problems but had eventually been paid out.
She was the only person with ongoing issues, she was told. She adds: ‘I spoke to one lady in the group, a mum of three who worked in fashion and design, who I thought was my friend. I told her of my daily struggles but she told me I must have it wrong.’
Ruby opened up to her husband Matt, who was concerned over the legitimacy of the company but, wrapped up in the lie, she convinced him it must be real.
She says: ‘I said I needed £6,000 to be able to withdraw £85,000. He said it sounded a bit scammy but I sounded quite confident about it and, as others had similar problems, he gave me the money.’
By the end of April, Ruby had handed £59,428 to the scammers.
She says: ‘I kept the extent of it to myself but my husband ran a credit report and saw I had taken two £10,000 loans.
‘That’s when the questions started and he found out how much I had borrowed from friends and the bank. He was very upset to say the least.’
Ruby didn’t turn to her bank or Action Fraud because she still couldn’t face the fact that she may have been scammed. Instead, she sought explanations from Julia, but to her shock, the agent had blocked her on WhatsApp.
‘I had also been kicked out of the WhatsApp group because I was kicking up a fuss. I couldn’t eat or sleep and didn’t know where to turn.’
Ruby’s debts began to mount, as the short-term loans she had taken cost £1,480 a month to pay off, which she could not meet.
Scrambling to raise the funds, Ruby was then enticed into another scam at the end of April. A man she considered a friend who she had met online years ago suggested she invest in cryptocurrency if she wanted to make money fast.
She was told the investment was in ‘digital asset mining’ and over the next few weeks she borrowed a further £10,000 to invest.
When she realised that, too, was a scam, she was recommended a money recovery agency to help her recoup funds from her banks. However, after sending £2,500, she suspects the company was also a fake.
Ruby now faces a mountain of debt, having lost more than £80,000, and she doesn’t know how she will pay it all off.
‘I can’t believe how quickly it all went wrong,’ she says. ‘I don’t recognise myself any more. I’m typically savvy and can’t understand how I got to this point.’
A spokesman for Vue Cinemas said: ‘Vue would never ask anyone for any type of payment or bank details as part of a job application process.
‘We urge that anyone who receives such messages not to engage with these requests and to contact the police.’
Keith Rosser, director of Reed Screening, said: ‘We are sorry to hear of this recent incident.
‘We take the security of our websites very seriously and note that these sorts of scams usually target jobseekers directly.
‘We encourage people to look out for signs of potential scams when searching for jobs.
‘These can include receiving an offer right away without having applied, being contacted by WhatsApp, being required to pay to work for a company, or a company requesting confidential information before hiring.’
- All names have been changed.
