Trading Standards has issued a warning to residents to be on their guard against phone scammers after a Newbridge woman was targeted.
Nicola Taylor was contacted by someone claiming to be from Microsoft Technical Support and advised her that she had a virus on her computer – despite the fact she didn’t have one.
Mrs Taylor was contacted a total of five times and explained each time that she did not have a computer.
Eventually she was told she could get a free laptop through a competition Microsoft was running and that she was the lucky winner.
The caller told Mrs Taylor that all she had to do was give them her bank card details to enable a £10 processing fee to be taken. She refused, and contacted Trading Standards to report the scam.
Cllr Rob Gough, cabinet member for public protection said: “Thankfully Mrs Taylor realised that this call was a scam and contacted Trading Standards to report it to us, which has enabled us to issue this warning to residents.
“I would encourage residents to ensure they know who they are dealing with over the telephone and not to give any details, especially bank details and personal information out unless they are completely sure that the caller is genuine.”
Trading Standards offer the following advice for dealing with this type of call:
- Callers can be very persuasive, so take their details such as phone number, address, website address and hang up. Do some research to check they are genuine before committing to anything.
- If you are informed you have won a prize or competition – think, have you ever dealt with this company before or entered any competitions? If an offer sounds too good to be true, the likelihood is that it is.
If you are concerned that you have received a scam telephone call, please report this to Consumer Direct on 0808 156 6736.