Elderly victim conned out of £5,000

An elderly man from Woking was tricked out of over £5,000 of his life savings by a man posing as a police officer.

The suspect contacted the victim yesterday (June 11) claiming to be from Hammersmith Police and asking if he would help him with an investigation he was running to catch someone working in Barclays Bank. The victim was provided with a reference number and asked to withdraw £5,200 from the bank so they could check the cash for fingerprints.

When the victim returned home, a man arrived who gave him the reference number and took the money. The suspect was not in uniform and did not provide any ID. He has been described a possibly Asian male with a light coloured skin tone, dark hair, casually dressed, 5’8” tall and of a muscular build. He was in his late 20’s, early 30’s and spoke with a London accent.

Woking Inspector David Bentley said: “The victim believed the suspect was a police officer as he knew his name, phone number and address and sounded professional.

“However, police officers will always provide I.D. and would never ask for money. If a bank was being investigated then we would speak directly to them.

“Fraud such as this is a serious offence and we are urging the public to get in touch should they have any further information so we can stop this happening to someone else.”

If you have any information, please call 101, quoting reference number PR/45200060213.

Fraudulent crimes are increasingly becoming more complex and deceptive, much of which is targeted at vulnerable victims.

Action Fraud advises you that the police will never:

• Contact you to ask you for your pin and bank details.
• Ask you to withdraw money to them to hand over for safe keeping.
• Ask you to transfer money out of your account for fraud reasons
• Send someone to your home to collect cash, cards or pins.

Operation Signature is Surrey Police’s campaign to identify and support vulnerable victims of fraud. See more information.