Neighbourhood police teams offer advice to beat telephone and cold call scammers

Humberside Police Neighbourhood Policing Teams are offering residents some common sense tips to combat telephone and cold call scams.

These ‘cold call’ scams typically involve fraudsters/scammers deceiving victims into believing they are speaking to a police officer, a member of bank staff, or a representative of another trusted organisation.

People must always be on their guard if they receive a cold call and are asked for any of the following:

○ Personal or financial information, eg full name, date of birth, address, passwords, bank details, security numbers etc. Do not give this information out!

Cold call scams typically involve fraudsters/scammers deceiving victims into believing they are speaking to a police officer, a member of bank staff, or a representative of another trusted organisation.

○ You are asked to transfer or withdraw money.

○ You are asked to hand over your credit / debit card or cash to someone eg a courier who will call and collect it.

○ You are told that the caller requires access to your computer as it needs an “update” adding or that the caller needs to validate your copy of Microsoft Windows. Scammers can also tell you that your computer has a virus and ask you to download software to fix it: the software they want to give you to download is actually ‘spyware’ that will give them access to all your online information.

○ You are told that you have won something eg lottery winnings or a competition and so the callers needs your bank details to arrange to pay your prize money. (if you haven’t entered any competitions then you can’t have won anything!)

A police spokesman said: “The bank or the police will never tell you to take such actions or ask you for financial information. If you are asked to do any of these things, someone is trying to con you! If in doubt, call back the organisation on a number you trust, but do it on another phone or leave it at least ten minutes before you make the call.

“This is important because criminals are able to keep the line open after you put down the phone, which means you could end up inadvertently talking to the criminal or their accomplice again.”

For other hints and tips log onto the www.actionfraud.police.uk website, which lists an A – Z of different fraud types as well as tips on how to protect yourself from fraud.