Eamonn Holmes has told how he was “scammed” out of thousands.
Eamonn Holmes was swindled out of thousands by a scammer
The former 'This Morning' presenter has revealed he was a victim of identity theft after an imposter swindled £17,000 from him to stay in a luxury hotel and buy building materials.
The media personality, 63, opened up about his ordeal returned to host the GB News breakfast show alongside Isabel Webster, after being forced to take medical leave for four months following surgery to his back, and a shoulder injury.
Eamonn said: “In Belfast, there may only be one Eamonn Holmes, yet a guy was able to go and live in a hotel using my name for two solid weeks at the top hotel in Belfast.
"No one thought of saying, 'You’re not as handsome as Eamonn Holmes, you just couldn’t be Eamonn Holmes,' but he went and he lived in a central Belfast hotel for two weeks and then he bought building materials, slabs, concrete, marble fireplaces, all sorts of things.”
Holmes was fuming as the judge who dealt with his case described the incident as a “victimless” crime and ordered the presenter to reconcile with the con-artist rather than convicting him.
He added: "At the end of this, the judge said it’s a victimless crime so he wasn’t sent away. The judge basically thought that I should meet up with this guy and reconcile with him, whatever it is, and I basically told him where to stick it.
"It isn’t a victimless crime. You begin to suspect people around you, people who work for you, all sorts of things. So you suspect lots of things and there’s the stress about it. I was very lucky in the fact that the bank reimbursed me but the idea that this is victimless is wrong."
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