AN ELDERLY man has been conned into handing cash to imposters claiming to be from the fraud squad in Hereford, police are warning.

The 80 year old man fell victim to these fraudsters on July 31, conned into withdrawing an amount of cash from his personal bank account after being told his credit cards had been cloned.

Two separate couriers were then sent to collect the cash from his home address.

West Mercia Police said imposters claiming to be from the fraud squad are pretending to be police officers in an attempt to defraud people in the courier fraud scam.

Detective Inspector Emma Wright said: “This type of fraud often targets older and more vulnerable people and we would urge everyone to tell someone, by passing on the information about the bogus callers to relatives, friends and neighbours who may not have heard about the local telephone scam in operation.

“In the most recent incidents, ‘DS Spencer from the fraud squad’ was used as an alias but the name they use is regularly changed. Always remember that no police officer from any force or department will ever ask you to hand over money or transfer funds, regardless of their name or unit.”

The deception can also be carried out in several ways, such as a phone caller pretending to be a police officer who is investigating unidentified activity/ fraud in their bank account and that they must cooperate with the ‘investigation’.

The victim is then persuaded to withdraw funds and hand them over to the 'investigators', either by some remote means or in person to a courier.

The victim is told that if the bank cashier queries the large withdrawal that they are to say it is for work/repairs in the home or Christmas shopping.

Alternatively the victim may be asked to hand over bank cards, vouchers or other valuable items. They may also be asked to transfer funds to another account, which is controlled by the fraudsters.

The police will never contact you asking for your bank card or cash. If someone does, it's a scam – provide no details and hand nothing over, hang up and report it immediately to Action Fraud at www.actionfraud.police.uk or 0300 123 2040.

If the crime is still in progress, call the police to report this on 101. In an emergency dial 999.