The message is very clear – Be scam aware!
Crawley Borough Council is warning residents to be scam
aware following a rise in reports of conmen knocking on doors.
The council has recently received reports of two
different scams, where residents are asked to pay thousands of pounds up front
for work that isn’t needed or shouldn’t cost anywhere near that amount.
In the first scam, a group of men were knocking on
residents’ doors claiming to be from a boiler company and saying that they had
been sent to check on boilers.
This happened to a resident in Bewbush, who was told
their boiler needed to be fixed at a cost of £4,000, which he was told to
withdraw from his bank without telling anyone. This particular tenant was
vulnerable but fortunately the bank staff knew him well and questioned why he
was withdrawing such a large amount of money.
His support worker was then notified and the incident was
reported to the police. Additional security measures have been put in place for
this tenant.
The second scam was reported in Gossops Green, where a
resident was scammed for fencing at a cost of £3,500. This was reported to the
police and fortunately the cheque was cancelled before the scammers got their
money.
Scams come in many different forms and not just on the
doorstep. Other scams include emails, phone calls and text messages. We are
encouraging tenants to be extra careful when buying products or services online
or in person.
Some of the signs to look out for include:
* You
are asked to pay money up front, for example to cover delivery costs or to
‘release funds’
* You
have ‘won a prize’ in a lottery or competition you have never heard of, much
less entered
* You
are pressurised or hurried into making a decision – e.g. told to ‘act now’ as
the price will go up if you don’t buy immediately
* You
are told to not tell anyone else about it – for example ‘it’s an exclusive deal
only for you’
* Unsolicited
emails, phone calls, text messages or letters
* Emails
from sources you don’t recognise that include attached documents or other files
* Emails
that appear to be from your bank, HMRC or another trustworthy source that ask
you to reveal personal data, such as your account details.
Councillor Peter Lamb, Leader of Crawley Borough Council, said:
“There will always be a small number of people who seek to take advantage of others, but we can protect ourselves from scams by taking a little extra time to check people are who they claim to be.”