Plea from Merseyside Police

We need everyone to be on their guard against a type of fraud where criminals are claiming to be us, the Police, in order to con people out of their money.

Please can we share the word, especially to those who may not see the social media warning posts.

In the past week, fraudsters have called St Helens residents claiming to be a police officer and giving a police rank then fake name. Two incidents have happened in the town and more have happened in neighbouring police force areas.

The callers have lied to the person they’ve called by saying they’re investigating a banking fraud against them and need them to withdraw cash from the bank.

They have stayed on the phone to their victims and spun a complex web of other lies designed to trick them into withdrawing more cash from places like travel agents and the Post Office.

All the while under the pretence that they’re the police and that the victim is helping them investigate… a fraud!

These criminals are staying on the line and instructing their victims to hand over cash to their accomplices in person, who also pretend to be the police, but could even be a person claiming to be acting on their behalf.

This is 'courier fraud' and a complete scam that we need everyone reading this to be aware of and help spread the word amongst your friends, families and neighbours.

Two elderly local men have already lost thousands of pounds each to ‘courier fraud’ and is occurring elsewhere in the region.

Here’s how you can help:

• Be suspicious/vigilant if you get a call from anyone saying your bank card has been cloned or money stolen from your account

• Always ask who the caller is, get full name, rank, collar number (this is unique to every real police officer), their police station and a crime reference or incident log number

• Then, end the call by hanging up and from a different phone, call 101, ask for the police and tell our call handler what has happened and ask them to verify what you’ve been told

If the information doesn’t check out our control room will advise you what to do next, which will include:

• Alerting a trusted relative, neighbour, or friend to what has happened

• Not giving out any personal or banking details to anyone who calls you back (including our control room)

• Not doing anything like withdrawing large amounts of money to give to anyone claiming to be from the police, or letting anyone like this into

I have carried out the follow up on one of the victims, an elderly man caring for his wife with Parkinsons and dementia. He has expressed how embarrassed he feels having fallen for this scam. He believed he was helping the police and didn’t question it until after. This is a disgusting scam to pray on the vulnerable and use a person of trust, such as a police officer, to convince the victim.

Please share and help where you can. A poster is available

courier fraud poster.pdf

Download PDF • 5.76MB

and we encourage anyone to put it up in their local shops, community boards, community groups and sheltered accommodation etc.