Elderly man narrowly avoids losing thousands to scammers

An elderly Derbyshire man narrowly avoided being scammed out of thousands of pounds thanks to the help of a police officer.

The man, whose exact place of residence has not been detailed, had been contacted by someone claiming to be an officer from Derbyshire Police. The scammers told him that his bank card had been compromised and then sent a mobile phone to his address so they could contact him further.

The next day, they told the man to go to the bank and withdraw £10,000 with the cover story of buying a car.

However, on the way to the bank in Nottingham, the phone ran out of battery so the man popped into a police station in the city centre to ask to charge it.

Once there, he was spoken to by an officer from Nottinghamshire Police and the phone was seized.

The man has also been offered support and advice by fraud protect officers from Derbyshire Constabulary.

Derbyshire Police officials have been receiving a high number of reports of police impersonation fraud in recent weeks.

People receive a call from someone pretending to be a police officer who says that they are investigating the unauthorised use of that person’s bank card and advising them not to tell anyone about this call as it may jeopardise the police investigation.

As the call progresses, victims will be encouraged to withdraw funds from their bank account or give bank cards to a courier, arranged by the ‘police officer’ under the guise of ‘assisting with a police investigation’.

In some cases, victims have been asked to withdraw Euros from a currency exchange kiosk.

A spokesperson said that such calls can be linked to courier fraud, and said that anyone receiving one should not give out any personal information and hang up the call immediately.

The statement added that police officers will never make direct contact and  ask for banking information or request that you withdraw money from an account to aid an investigation.

Fraudsters often target geographical areas where they know elderly or vulnerable people live, so if you have family or friends who are vulnerable in anyway, please make them aware of this scam.

Anyone being contacted in this way, should contact Derbyshire Police as soon as possible for the area targeted to be assessed, to alert banks and seek to protect other local residents to prevent any financial loss.