Karen Welsh, a health executive from Lancashire, needed to fly to Brisbane, Australia, to visit an unwell family member. But scammers who contacted her through social media almost succeeded in stealing her savings and wrecking her trip.

Ms Welsh found suitable flights from Manchester via Doha to the Queensland capital on Qatar Airways. As an NHS worker, she is entitled to a discount. But, she says: “Once I clicked ‘pay now’ the website just whirled and wouldn’t progress to asking for payment details.”

She contacted Qatar Airways support via direct message on X (formerly Twitter), to no avail.

“I spent six days going back and forth with no real help or outcome.”

Ms Welsh then posted a public message on X asking for support.

“I then received a direct message from an account called ASK Service Team with the same logo as Qatar. I was told that they had escalated the matter to their WhatsApp customer relations team and I was going to receive a message from them.”

She then received a call from a WhatsApp number in Kenya that called itself “Call Centre, Customer Support”.

At this point the scam began. “The gentleman said that he had been given a brief summary of my concerns and that to help me book flights, I needed to download the WorldRemit payment app, as Qatar was having issues with their payment platform,” Ms Welsh says.

“At this point, I was a little suspicious – as I always am – but Googled WorldRemit and found it was a legitimate secure payment platform. I went onto the app and added my email address.

“The man on the phone gave me a password and told me not to create an account, but to put my email into the log-on link. He then asked me to input the password he gave me and then to send the authorisation link that I would get to my phone, to him.

“It was at this point I stopped and realised I should never be asked to do that. I asked the man to send me an email to confirm this is what I should do, from the official Qatar email address. He obviously never did.”

The scam involves the villains taking control of the WorldRemit account, which is tied to a UK account, and emptying it of cash.

Ms Welsh now says: “Honestly, I am shocked that I went as far as I did, but I can fully understand how people keep going – if you are frustrated with the lack of service from an airline, you are naturally happy and cooperative when someone seems to be taking an interest.

“When I look back through everything, I notice things like the Service Team Twitter message came from an account with one follower.”

Ms Welsh wants her experience to be shared, in the hope of preventing others falling victim to the scam.

“I was so close to being scammed out of money, which means I would have been unable to visit my uncle, who’s seriously unwell. He’s 87, and it’s likely to be my last time that I’m going to visit him.

“If they had scammed me for money, I possibly wouldn’t have been able to go on that trip, which would have been devastating for me, but also devastating for my auntie and uncle over there.

“Not only would they have stolen money from me, they’ll have stolen the ability for me to see my uncle again for potentially the last time.

“You can never get something like that, that back, can you?”

Ms Welsh has now booked with Emirates for the trip to Brisbane.

With her WhatsApp number now known to the criminal world, she is now being called several times each day by other scammers based in Egypt and Pakistan.

Listen to Karen Welsh’s story on The Independent’s daily travel podcast