Chapter 2: Victim of Fraud

As I write the following experience, I will be using fictional names as the purpose of this story is not to name names but to focus more on how and why things affected me and the detrimental impact it had on my mental well being.

Although I do not normally write, I’m not quite sure how to express to you my story of recovery and rebuilding my inner strength without first exposing myself at my most vulnerable, therefore all that I describe below are my raw truths. As you continue to read my blog, I can only assume that in the back of your mind, the following questions and thoughts will pop up.

How could you be so stupid Akshay? How could you be so trusting? Naive much, Akshay? How did you not see the signs? How did your parents not step in? Are you crazy to transfer that much money without seeing a single receipt or have any face-to-face conversations with the company you thought you sent your money to? Why go out with a large group of people where you only know two people?

If these thoughts enter your mind at any point, I don’t blame you! I had the same thoughts running through my mind for almost two years… Each thought and question weighing heavily on my mind, pushing me down the theoretical deep, black hole that I was in, not knowing how to pull myself out, nor knowing who to turn to for help. This is how it all ended, let me tell you how it first began.

In December 2016, I was approached by Dev with the opportunity to go into business with him - we were to hold a music gig in April/May 2017 in London where big artists would come and perform. As a 21 year old, with all the exciting prospects and thoughts of making money in mind, I jumped at the idea!

Quick backstory is that I met Dev from my time spent at university in Birmingham - he used to run a club night which I would sell tickets for - in addition to me knowing him personally through mutual friends. At first glance, Dev seemed like a genuine guy who spoke and ran his nights as if he knew the business. Thinking that was enough to know his character and in all honesty, being as trusting as I am, I didn’t even think about asking around about him before jumping at the opportunity.

I asked to think about it for a couple days and talked it through with my dad who was supportive. Dev insisted that he needed a quick response to lock in the first artist as he had a good rate and availability on the proposed date. He presented me with contracts that had a company letterhead, payment details, terms and conditions, details about the event, etc. Everything seemed real and legitimate. He told me his dad’s lawyer had looked through the contract and it all seemed to check out. He then went on to share with me his past events while filling my head with all these ideas of potential plans for the future, and to be very honest, the thoughts of the potential profit from the event was an exciting factor in itself.

So I went ahead and agreed to go into business. For us to lock in the artist, Dev and I agreed that all expenses would be halved and we would both transfer 50% of the total amount to the bank details provided by the companies we were paying into. So I made my first payment, transferring a large amount of money to the details provided within the contract.

From there, things just kicked off at super-speed: we set up a company through Companies House which his lawyer helped us set up and filed the appropriate documents; we set up a company email; a friend put me in touch with a security contact who has a team to run security at the event, he then put us in touch with an Events planning team, who were to guide and help us during our first event. With my excitement at 100%, I put all my energy and focus into every meeting, splitting the tasks that needed to be done between Dev and I - him looking at the venue possibilities and sorting out further artists while I did the artwork for the event (as per the above illustration), promotional video, logistics of the night and so on. As a couple of weeks went by, we came upon an opportunity to lock in another big artist, again requiring me to put up half of the money, which I did and thought Dev had done the same. Dev was just as active and attended all the meetings. When it came to deciding the venue, we had decided on Alexandra Palace and Dev had said to me that he would sort out the contract details. Again this required more expenditure.

There are many more details behind the scenes that I have not written here; all I’ll say is that the expenses racked up and that, due to the size of the event that it had become, and how well things were going, , I turned to my parents, siblings and even one of my cousins for financial help. I thought to myself that I’d be able to pay them back from the revenue we’d make from the event. My parents checked in at several points but I ensured them that I had it all under control and they left me to it.

February 2017 fast approached where it nearly became time to release and sell tickets. This was when Dev became distant… Unresponsive to texts, making last-minute excuses not to come to meetings, calls going to voicemail. I would attend meetings with both the security team and events team but he wouldn’t be there. My security team became suspicious of him and asked me not to say anything further to him until they had investigated him. Two weeks into February, I remember being at work one day, and I got a phone call from the security team telling me they think the entire show is a fake.

That same day, I went onto the company email account and found that Dev had deleted two emails. One was from the agency where we had supposedly booked the artists asking why their company name was being associated to events they knew nothing of, and for us to call the director to discuss the issue further. The second email was from Alexandra Palace asking if we had decided to go ahead with the booking of their venue as they hadn’t heard from us. After finding these emails in the deleted folder, I changed the password for the account. I remember excusing myself from my desk and moving to the next room to make my phone calls. I first decided to call Alexandra Palace and spoke to the Events team where they confirmed that no event had been booked under our name for the said date, and that they had a query on hold for Dev but were awaiting his response. Coming off of this call, my knees went so weak. I was speechless. Terrified. Finding my composure, I made my next call to the music agency whose number I found in the deleted email. After a long discussion, and the request for me to send him the apparent “agency” artist contracts, I was informed that, yes, they were their contracts, however both the artists and bank details had been amended and were not their company accounts.

This broke me. Still to this day, I have no words to describe the feeling inside of me at that time. I collapsed to the floor and cried… Loud enough for my manager to run in, pick me up, and attempt to calm me down. The next call was the hardest. I begged dad to come home from work and told him that I too, was on my way home. That journey home, I was in total shock for the entire hour, playing everything over in my head, not knowing where to even begin telling my parents. Dad walked in, sat beside me, and as soon as I broke down, he knew.

Together we called Dev. To no surprise, there was no answer. I had Dev’s dad’s number and thought I’d call him and ask him to explain what his son has done. His response was completely unbelievable… “You chose to go into business with my son. Whatever you are accusing him of, you have to deal with it with him directly.” I thought to myself, what kind of human spends his life raising his son but then has that attitude when confronted with such criminal and unforgivable activities. Dev’s dad hung up and after 5 minutes, I got a phone call from Dev where he tried to convince me that he had not conned me and that all was in hand. He had said that he had spoken to different people at both the agency and the venue and that there was nothing to be worried about. But, clear as day, the evidence was stacked against him!

That night I had a phone call from my manager firstly to check in on me, and secondly to give me the next day off to attempt to sort out/report the entire incident.

After an emotionally traumatic night, my first call the next day was to the fraud team at my bank explaining the situation, and though they needed to investigate further, they told me that they would not be able to cover my loss since I willingly transferred the money to those accounts from my debit account. My next call was to Action Fraud who told me that upon placing my report, it would take 6 weeks to be investigated.

While this investigation was ongoing, my security team contacted me and offered their services to find Dev and retrieve the stolen money in any way they could – oh, how the anger and pain inside me tempted me to choose this path. However, my parents, big believers of Karma (I’ll cover my opinions on this one day in another blog), asked me not to as they believed that choosing this negative path could one day come back to impact my life. As tempted as I was, I listened to them, as I had not made the best decisions in my life to date.

6 weeks went by and I was informed that my case was too weak and that there was not enough proof or criminal evidence against him to proceed with an investigation. The only plausible route next was to take him to court. However, we, one, did not have the money to afford it, and two, had been told he had no assets in his name to go after.

We were left with no options but to accept the situation and deal with it as best as we could.

As time went on, I was contacted by an individual asking me where their money was. Confused at first, I questioned who they were and why they thought I had taken their money. As the conversation went on, it became apparent that Dev had “borrowed” their money and used the company name as an excuse. Since Dev had now disappeared, they looked into the company through Companies House and saw my name listed as an ex-director.

This was not the first or last time this happened. I received phone calls from three different individuals all asking the same thing – “Where’s my money?”

I was not the only one.

To each of them, I said the same thing: call up Action Fraud, report him and support my case. Unfortunately, in most circumstances, they were either too scared to come forward due to parental reasons or wanted to go after him personally.

I may not have been the only one… but the amount he stole from me and my family for was gut-wrenching, to say the least. And if I’m honest, the value being so much higher than the amounts of money that others were asking for back, further impacted my mental health.

My parents said that the money I owed them was not a priority. It was important to me to and pay back both my sisters and cousin before even thinking about my own depleted savings. I spent the next year and a half using every monthly paycheck I got to pay them back.

What I didn’t do however, was spend any time talking about or reflecting on my feelings. I didn’t speak to my family, friends, or colleagues. Instead, I buried my feelings deep inside of me. I was constantly thinking about what other people thought of me, what my family thought of me, and my horrifying mistakes. Words like ‘shame’, ‘embarrassment’, ‘naivety’, ‘unforgivable’, ‘stupid’, all constantly flowed within me, but I bottled them up, and just carried on with my life as though everything was normal.

This was not the way.