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The Christmas Scam Warnings For Islanders To Watch Out For

Heading into Christmas, we have been informed of some of the more prolific scams that are being reported on the Island.

The main one involves a computer generated call stating that payments have been taken from your Visa/Mastercard account and to press 1 to report a fraud.

This scam also takes the form of a payment from your Amazon account.

This time of year when we are all doing a lot more shopping this may panic us into responding to the instructions on the message, however, all of these calls are SCAMS – do not respond.

Other reports describe the same method but claim they are the Bank or Council Tax refund department – these organisations will NEVER contact you in this way

The number they are calling from sometimes starts '01983', which may give it a sense of legitimacy but scammers will buy any available UK numbers so don’t always trust a number that starts 01983.

The best way to prevent yourself from being the victim of a scam is to set up some type of call blocking on your landline, free if you are a Wightfibre, Sky or Talk Talk customer or you can purchase call blocking phones.

The National Scams Team currently have a supply of free call blocking units that anyone who is particularly vulnerable or a repeat scam victim can apply for Friends Against Scams - Call blocker.

I would like to thank you all for your support in sharing these messages to the more vulnerable in our community and wish you all a very safe and Happy Christmas.

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