500 Plymouth people on scam hit list

A list detailing 500 Plymouth vulnerable residents who may have been targeted by unscrupulous scammers has been passed to the Council’s Trading Standards team as part of a national crackdown.

Plymouth has joined the National Trading Standards Scams Team, a UK-wide venture which aims to share and use intelligence from key partners to identify potential serial victims of mass marketing scams.

Now Plymouth’s officers face the task of contacting all the individuals on the victims list to find out the scale of any scam as well as advise them against responding to further communications.

Cabinet member for the Environment, Councillor Brian Vincent said: “This is the first time authorities across the country have joined forces and resources on such a scale. There are now 118 teams across the country working to tackle this issue.

“Scammers prey on the more vulnerable members of our community and we have seen scams which have had a devastating impact on their victims.”

The names come from several lists as part of different police and Trading Standards investigations where it is believed people have responded to scams. Scams come in a variety of forms; letters, emails or phone calls and can look and sound very official. They use clever methods to trick people into sending money or disclosing bank details. 

Councillor Vincent said: “If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. We would particularly like carers and neighbours of more vulnerable people to keep an eye out for scam mail and contact Trading Standards if they are concerned.”

Louise Baxter, manager of the National Scams Team said it was working with a range of partnmers, including Trading Standards to tackle this problem.  She said: "We want to make it impossible for the scammers to operate here. This is an international crime affecting millions of people and we need to do something about it."

Over the last month the Council’s team has been working with the Citizens Advice Bureau as part of Scam Awareness month. Staff have been giving talks on scams to local groups including the Plymstock Forum

This week the team will also be running a multi-agency training event on scams to Advice Plymouth.

It is estimated mass marketing scams cause approximately £3.5 billion worth of detriment to UK consumers. Scams often target vulnerable members of the community who least can afford to send money to the scammers.

For further information and advice about postal scams and bogus phone calls you can call Citizens Advice Consumer Services on 08454 04 05 06. You can report scams to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or via www.actionfraud.police.uk

More details on scams and Scams Awareness month can be found on the Trading Standards Institute website.