You may have recently seen in the press an incident whereby a resident in the Wells area lost £51,000 to scammers, part of this loss was actual cash that was handed to a ‘courier’. The victim was completely convinced by the story he had been sold by the scammers as they had all of his personal details. Sadly the victim will probably never see that money again. 

The victim received a phone call from the scammers who claim to have a named relative or suspect in custody who had a cloned copy of the victims bank card. The victim was asked to confirm some personal details and was then told that to protect their account they needed to go and withdraw an amount from the bank and a courier, working for the Police or Fraud dept, would come and collect it to safeguard the victims money. The victim was then asked to transfer money from their account to another account, details of which were provided at the time of the call.

The other Scam that has been used is where a call from ‘HMRC’ or someone acting on their behalf such as a Court official is received by the victim. The scammers claim that there is an outstanding debt against the victims tax account and payment needs to be made. When challenged the scammers become abusive and make threats to come to the victims home putting the victim in fear and forcing them to make a payment over the phone.

Please be vigilant and report any suspected scams to https://www.actionfraud.police.uk