Successful businesswoman Natalia Ribbe ran a flourishing restaurant inside Kent’s Turner Contemporary before falling victim to a sophisticated £50,000 scam.

Now, the 38-year-old has described her plight to rebuild her life after fraudsters won her trust and then siphoned away her livelihood in moments.

Natalia Ribbe’s harrowing ordeal began when she flagged suspicious charges on her bank account with, who she believed, was her bank’s online chat support team.

She was informed the matter would swiftly be investigated and not to enquire again until the department had launched a probe and been in touch.

Days later, someone claiming to be from the unit won her trust on the phone by several methods; they had unprecedented access to her data including her home address, various bank account details, and other sensitive financial information.

The agent would also lull Ms Ribbe into a false sense of trust after advising her to refuse a suspicious payment request on her banking app while they were on the phone together.

She explains: “I immediately declined this charge and was made to feel that I was, in fact, talking to a fraud department worker who was protecting my account.”

The person on the phone told her the fraud team would assist in securing her cash by helping transfer her funds to a new account.

“They said some transactions might come through with names of businesses on it and that that is how it worked and that I should accept the payments to ‘Christian Dior’ and ‘Prada’,” she recalled.

“At the end of the call I was told that at 8.30am the following day I would receive a call about setting up my new account and all my money would be transferred.

"Needless to say when I woke up that was not the case.”

Ms Ribbe says the cruel trick in October 2022 cost her and then partner, Jackson Berg, their business - Barletta restaurant and coffee house in Margate.

She says the money snatched was her employees’ wages and rent for her landlord the Turner Contemporary.

“Retelling the story, it’s really painful,” continued the Thanet resident.

“Because you think - ‘Why on earth would I do that?’ - but they put you in a panic bubble. It was just awful.”

“The advice I would give is money comes and money goes...”

The scam is known as authorised push payment (APP) fraud, one of the most common in the UK.

In the first half of 2023 alone, APP schemes cost Brits more than £200 million, with 116,324 cases reported.

Ms Ribbe, originally from the USA, reported what happened to Action Fraud and the police.

Explaining the authorities could not investigate due to a lack of evidence, Ms Ribbe said: “People didn’t want to believe me.”

“They thought that it was a lie, that it can’t be real.

“But it was very real.”

Despite sympathetic words from Ms Ribbe’s bank, the financial institution did not accept liability for what happened and the loss was not covered by insurance.

Of the £50,000 taken from her, Ms Ribbe says she was only ever able to recover a few hundred, although she did manage to generate £5,000 through a GoFundMe set up to “help save Barletta”.

“I’m still crawling my way out of debt, and I will be for several years,” she lamented.

“It felt like my whole entire world was never going to be right again, but now I feel like I’ve been through something that’s changed me - made me healthier and stronger as a person.”

At the time of the scam, the restaurateur had plans to open a wine bar in Cliftonville.

And even though the ordeal had been financially ruinous and dealt a heavy blow to her confidence, she was determined to see her aspirations for the new business through.

Asked why she decided to take the plunge with a new project rather than pursue a ‘safer’ option - a day job for example - Ms Ribbe said: “There’s no such thing as safe.

“In the cost-of-living crisis, people are having their jobs cut left, right and centre. You have to do what you think is right for you at the time and for me that meant keep pushing forward.

“It was really hard, I cried a lot and I was worried about making the wrong decision but I wasn’t going to let what happened to me define me.”

Ms Ribbe says she has dreamed of having a business of her own since she was 11 years old and fell in love the hospitality sector working in neighbourhood restaurants in New York City.

As an adolescent and young adult she and her family moved around a lot - from the USA to Romania, then to Hungary, Austria and back to the States before relocating again to London and settling in Kent in 2019.

But with the recent opening of Sète on Northdown Road, Ms Ribbe says she now feels at home in Kent.

“If you had asked me that a year ago, I would have said absolutely not - get me out of here,” she explained.

“But now I feel like I’m part of the community and just I love bringing people joy through food and wine.

“I think it’s made me a happier person pursuing Sète and working through the challenges than if I had just thrown in the towel and run away - and trust me I was very close.

“Losing everything and then having to start all over again from scratch was a powerful lesson.

“But I was very lucky that there are people who have been a part of my journey since before Barletta who believed in me and helped me fund my dream.”

The entrepreneur is still extremely nervous about taking phone calls from banks.

But she says that with time, she has put the experience of the scam into perspective and urges others who have been victims of similar frauds not to be ashamed.

“The advice I would give is money comes and money goes,” said Ms Ribbe.

“And don’t send money unless you know exactly where it’s going.

“But if this does happen to you, don’t be embarrassed, ashamed, or feel scared to talk about it - surround yourself with people who will help you get through it.

“It is really scary, but everything will be okay, even though in the moment you feel like it’s the end of the world.”

Sète opened as a wine shop and bar in October 2022 and began serving food last July.

Ms Ribbe says she has big summer plans for the establishment and encourages all people - especially those who would sheepishly claim to know nothing about wine - to drop by.

Jackson Berg is now head chef at the Good Shed in Canterbury, which has just been nominated as Good Food Guide’s best food-to-table restaurant.

Visit these links for information about how to spot a APP scam and what to do it you if you fall victim to one.

Pauline Smith, Head of Action Fraud, said: “Action Fraud can confirm that it received Ms Ribbe’s report on 16 November 2022.

It was assessed by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) at the City of London Police but has not been passed to a police force for investigation at this time.

“With more than 850,000 reports coming into the NFIB each year, not all cases can be passed on for further investigation.

Reports are assessed against a number of criteria which include the vulnerability of the victim.

“However, the reports most likely to present an investigative opportunity for local police forces, those where a crime is ongoing and those that present the greatest threat and harm to the victim or victims concerned, are the ones that are prioritised.”