I’m very sorry to hear this. It’s a reminder of the devastating impact that fraud can have on both the victim and their family. Previous Which? research found that the knock-on effect to scam victims’ wellbeing was the equivalent of £2,509 for offline fraud and £3,684 for online fraud - both of which are significantly higher than the average financial sum lost to fraud, which is roughly £600.

It is also a stark reminder that, due to the increasingly sophisticated and evolving tactics of fraudsters, any of us can be at risk. Which? hears frequently from a huge range of people who have been defrauded by scammers, and use any opportunity they can to take advantage of their victims. The sad truth is that anyone can be a victim of a scam - regardless of age or profession, and ideas about only the elderly falling victim are both lazy and wrong.

Scams can begin in unlikely places: your son was first approached on social media app Snapchat, somewhere that he would probably socialise with friends, by a fraudster claiming your son could make money through a bitcoin trading scheme.

At this point you’d expect the fraudster to ask for money - but what they were interested in were details, specifically the personal details they would need to apply for the £10,000 loan in your son’s name. They used threats of violence to make your son transfer the money to the fraudster’s account, and pressured him not to talk to Santander despite the bank’s attempts to contact him about the unusual transfer.

Thankfully, after you learnt what happened and approached Santander, they returned the £10,000, and Nationwide agreed to write off the interest on your son’s loan and remove it from your credit file. But questions remain over why Nationwide was willing to lend the money. The fraudster claimed your son was a Lloyds Bank employee earning £1,400 a month with no outgoings. Neither a check of your son’s credit report nor his personal details would necessarily have revealed this to be false, but you’d hope a 19-year-old attempting to borrow £10,000 – not to mention the curious lack of outgoings – would prompt extra checks.

Your son isn’t the only victim - Cifas, the financial industry fraud-fighting association, reported that identity fraud went up by a fifth last year. If you struggle to get the money back because your bank is refusing your claim, you can take your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS will act as an independent arbiter between the complainant and the bank, and is used to settle disputes when alternatives fail.

There’s several steps we can take to avoid becoming a victim. Don’t share any personal information with anyone unless you can verify their identity: banks will never ask customers for your PIN or security passwords over the phone. Put the phone down, take five minutes to consider what you’ve been told, and call the organisation back using a trusted phone number (such as the number on the back of your debit card) rather than the number you were called on.

Check which personal details you’re sharing on social media, and with whom, and be suspicious of any friend or connection requests from people you don’t know. When discarding paper documents, consider shredding those containing personal information. If you move house - and seeing as your son is a student, this might be quite frequent over the next few years - then request that Royal Mail redirects the post for at least a year.

Steps to avoid becoming a victim of online fraud - Sam Richardson