Beware “Police” Scams

From a Barton Resident:

I was phoned this morning, 11.52 am, from a withheld number. 

” This is the Hammersmith Police Station, I am DC Peter Andrews, we have received reports that your Visa Debit card has been used at an Apple store in Covent Garden. Have you got your card with you? Please check your cards. *** 18 elderly people in the Cambridge area have been targeted in this way. Please write down my details:- DC Peter Andrews, epaulette number DC 9255, have you got all that, please read it back to me. Now ring 101, you know that number, don’t you? Tell them what has happened then ring me back, my number is 0203 ####.”

 

I was suspicious from *** above. I did ring 0203####, but from a DIFFERENT  phone; it was a Chemist in Carshalton. I had already suspected that he would play with fake dialing tones, never actually clearing the line. 

I have phoned Cambridge Police, (it goes to Huntingdon). We agreed that “DC Peter Andrews” was a complete idiot, presented himself in a way that the Met Police just don’t use and that he had targeted the wrong person!!”

Often these types of scams, people pretending to be the police, happen in the middle of the night when you are tired and not thinking straight. Always report these to the local police. Check your bank records on line. Do not call back on the same phone line as often the caller does not hang up and an accomplice will take over. Never give out bank or credit card details such as passwords and PINs. Always be suspicious.