OTHER NEWS

Email and telephone scams

The Neighbourhood Watch Network encourages local coordinators to collate and circulate information to communities regarding suspicious behaviour of all kinds. Reports are often made by local residents as well as the police via the ‘Dorset Alert’ system.

In the last few weeks there has been an increase in the number of email and telephone scams that have been reported to Neighbourhood Watch in our area, so please be extra vigilant.

If you do receive a telephone call from someone that you don’t know or recognise, our advice is that you don’t allow them to engage you in conversation, simply put the phone down. You might find this difficult to do as it can feel impolite, but this is something that scammers are aware of and they use it to their advantage. You may wish to make an excuse and say you will phone back shortly before you hang up, if it makes you feel more comfortable.

If you haven’t registered with the ‘Telephone Preference Service’ (TPS) this is strongly recommended. You can do this at tpsonline.co.uk by using an easy and free registration form. It may not stop all nuisance calls because some originate come from non-UK sources. The law is such that companies making ‘cold calls’ may not ring numbers that are on the TPS list.

Scam emails are still a problem. A modern antivirus program on your computer will do a good job of stopping most of them. If you do get an email you weren’t expecting, perhaps from someone you do not know, see if it has a heading or email address that looks unusual. If so it is best to mark it as ‘Spam’ or ‘Junk’ and delete it. When you receive a suspicious email, never reply and never click on a link.

Sometimes an email may appear to be from someone you know with a message that looks irregular or unexpected. When you check the ‘real’ email address (depending on your software you can ‘hover’ the cursor over it or ‘right click’) you may well see that it is strange computer-generated one that contains a random series of numbers and letters or odd series of words. This is a scam email, delete it. If you are unsure or confused about what to do, don’t be in a hurry, its best to ask for help from a friend who uses computers more often.

David Whiteoak and Gordon Ratcliffe

Hermitage Neighbourhood Watch and Chetnole Home Watch

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