Vulnerable pensioners have been warned about a cunning credit card scam after six elderly people were targeted by a con artist in one day.
Northamptonshire Police this week revealed there were at least six reports of the scam reported in one day in Northampton, who received telephone calls from a man claiming to be a police officer.
In each incident the conman told the victim that detectives had arrested men who were found with the victim’s credit card details on them.
The caller told them to ring the bank to cancel the card, but he stayed on the phone line so when the victim phoned the bank, the call was instead still connected to the conman. He then asked the victim to give their full card details and key in their PIN before offering to send a “courier” to collect the card.
In a similar incident, a Northampton man intervened when a family member was nearly duped. Roger Nisbett, aged 51, of Queens Park, was visiting relatives in London when a bogus call came through. He said: “They were told it was a credit card check as two suspiciously large amounts had just been paid for. They wanted to confirm all the card details.
“I overheard the conversation, but when I realised they were asking for the PIN numbers too, I knew something wasn’t right. I took the phone and they immediately hung up.
“They were incredibly clever and it was all very plausible as they asked the questions you’d expect during a verification process. You can see how people fall for it.”