I've just witnessed a scam and can't believe it!

We have a CPR call blocker which enables you to cut out a lot of calls, could be useful for people trying to help an elderly or confused person. Like the idea of redirecting the mail.

Well done Solitaire, I hope the gentleman got help from the Bank, and he didnt fall for that scam. Its dreadful how people are so vunerable these days.

Cali I've had the same one but with them pretending to be BT ( my account is with BT) it was the same script and voice as the 'Microsoft ' scam, so I told them I knew they were a scam and to b---- off!

We ordered a take away over the telephone about 20 minutes later Nationwide B S. Phoned to tell us that our card had been 'Compromised' Someone had tried to use the card details in HONG KONG. We later found out that when we placed our order the guy who owned the shop repeated out loud the card numbers and one of his staff had text the numbers to someone in HONG KONG.

I should have said well done Solitaire - not everyone would try to help and it may have sunk in because there were a few of you saying it.

Some of this is quite generational and I believe some of the people attacked (because it is an attack) are in the early stages of dementia. My mother fell prey to a "you have won" completion before we were aware there was anything wrong with her cognitive ability. Eventually the bank would not let her borrow any more - I think they did this at a much earlier stage than they had to.

A neighbour found her in tears and eventually I got to know. The neighbour phoned my brother (in America) who was sworn not to tell me; he phone his daughter (in the UK) who phoned my daughter and they both said they would not have any nonsense about not telling me and did so. Eventually we went to the bank with Mum and I believe they were very aware of what was going on - recognising the name of the company the cheques were made out to. Mum was very happy to let me try and sort it out after that but still wanted to reply to the "you have won" letters.

I wrote some legally sounding letters saying I would take them to court for preying on a vulnerable adult (mum never saw those) and the letters stopped for quite a while. I reckon she was hundreds if not thousands of pounds out of pocket. She was happy to give me and my daughter POA so I have been looking after her money ever since, paying all the bills etc., and sometime after that we got a diagnosis of dementia.

The letters did start up again and mum - no longer with access to a cheque book - was stuffing money in the envelopes and asking her mobile hairdresser and carers to post them. Luckily I go very frequently and they all felt able to let me know but, of course, they were in a very awkward position and it all took very careful handling. I had to make the decision to redirect mum's mail in the end, which s - probably one of the worst things I have had to do as she loved the post coming and the family sends her lots of postcards to keep in touch. The redirect letters from these companies have tailed off presumable because of a lack of response.

A couple of years ago when mum could reason more I asked her if she knew that x, y and z all thought these were scams. She said yes, she did. What is it that convinces you to reply was my next question. Because they are in black and white came the reply. Again, I believe, a generation acceptance that those in authority (printed letter) are right.

I feel so sad about the gentleman in the OP. The best hope is that the bank will intervene as I doubt he will be able not to believe it now he has bought into it.

Lorelei I usually just click the phone off, but once in a while if I am caught getting out of the bath, or changing my DGD's nappy, I have said F**k Off. Also I was struggling with my brother's death in America last spring and had a lot of landline calls from Florida, so my nerves were a bit stretched. I did get a retort of F**k You, too once. Made me laugh that, I needed the comic relief then.

Sometimes I give a good panto chant when they say they are so and so from BT or whatever... I say very loudly OH NO YOU'RE NOT!

Good on you Solitaire for trying to help this gentleman, and we can only hope the bank staff are as on-the-ball as you. It infuriates me just how many of these heartless b******s spend their days scamming people and the horror stories of people losing everything they've worked for to cons. My nan, who had dementia, fell for those lottery scams and wouldn't listen to us, the police or anyone as she was convinced she was right and would win. We tried stopping the mail but some still got through; we told carers and neighbours not to post letters but to save them for us to check first (didn't help that carers turned out to be thieves too!) And these 'love' scams are even more cruel in many ways as they screw with the emotions of vulnerable people and are adept at knowing which cons work best for each person they are getting money from. Thank goodness there are people like Solitaire that are willing to at least try and prevent people becoming victims and that the police now have some dedicated officers dealing with these sorts of crimes. Sad to share a world with people that think it's OK to prey on others. We've had a couple of calls here that start with 'problem on your computer' or similar - I've resorted to saying f**k off before slammming the phone down - only 1 ever rang a second time and I was even ruder to that prick! Guess they aren't to know my better half was a networks engineer for years and could deal with any computer problems ;)

I've had many scam calls and mail my solution to mail asking for a handling fee to send me out a large check was to send a message back in an unstamped envelope requesting they take the handling fee out of my winnings.The scammers apparently have a sucker list which contains the names addresses and phone numbers of people who have already been successfully scammed marking them as an easy target.

It's interesting that the gentleman mentioned TalkTalk. A supposed "representative" of TalkTalk rang our landline last week. My husband answered - it was something about unauthorised activity on our broadband, which struck DH and I as odd. (We're both computer geeks and have taken many courses over the years.) He started quizzing the man and he said he couldn't tell who or why this had supposedly happened... unless he had our passwords, etc. Oh, sure! Hubs told him he believed it was a scam, man insisted it was not, said he would get his "technician" to phone us the next day. End of call. Meanwhile, hubs called TalkTalk to confirm it was a scam. They hadn't heard about this one before, but agreed that he was attempting to gain access to our broadband. She said they would send a letter if there was a problem and would never ask for information. "Technician" did phone back and hubs told him off! I just suspect scammers are trying to take advantage of the bad press TalkTalk had in 2015.

Well at least you tried. Well done! Very difficult to interfere when it is nothing to do with you personally so I admire you for that.

Poor man, he must have felt humiliated and no wonder he was angry with these horrible people calling him all the time. I hope they were not holding anyone as hostage or anything dramatic like that. Very frightening for him.

I think the PO should have asked this man to come in to a side room, called the police and left it to them.

My neighbour received a phone call from "bank". She gave out her pin number over the phone and and consequently had her account cleared out. She wasn't elderly or vulnerable. When she started to tell me, I stopped her to say, "Banks don't ask for your pin, this is a scam. Please tell me you didn't give out your pin". Her reply, "But he sounded a nice young man!"

We were scammed two and a half weeks ago. We wanted to sell our timeshare. We went all the way to Stratford-upon-Avon, happily thinking our problem was solved. To cut a long story short, we ended up paying them £1000 deposit for their "services". I felt uneasy afterwards so googled the company, which had a different name from the one we thought we were seeing. Scam! We cancelled under the 14 day cooling off period. They confirmed by email that we had cancelled. We followed up with a phone call and the promised to return our money. It's seventeen days now and not a penny back. Luckily we paid by MasterCard and they are working on reimbursing us. We are far from stupid, but it's so easy to be conned. After five hours of being bombarded by them we were worn down. You can ask how people get conned and the answer is easily!

My son in law is 59, he is divorced from my daughter, and he has fallen prey to the internet scams that are going about. A stunning looking lady messaged him saying she had seen him and was in love with him. I seriously couldn;t believe alarm bells hadn't already gone off, however, he has been lonely (he still gets along with my daughter, and as they have my grandchildren together we are all still close) and I know he was desperate to believe that a young woman of abour 30 would be interested in him.
My great grandson and grandaughter went to great lengths to show him that it was a scam, and he basically cut them off. He showed us a picture of her in Nigeria (another sign!) showing her with a picture of him, to which my grandson said it was faked.
My son in law then went absolutely livid, was completely vulgar to my poor grandaughter, and has since been found out to be paying this woman nearly £3000 as she apparently lives with her old Aunt and she wants to help her Aunt so she can some and be with him in the UK.
She has also apparently showed him her bank account, showing how she can pay him back thousands to thank him...it makes no sense, I don;t even think it does to him anymore, he has been getting blind drunk and refuses any help, probably embarrassed, and desperate to recapture the youth where he could have any woman he wanted.
I feel worse for my grandchildren, my daughter has tried to reason with him too, however, he tells her she is merely jealous and wants to get back with him. she really doesn;t, but he has been a paramedic all of his life, and is steadily losing everthing he ever built for the family.
Its sad, but this might take him actually destroying himself, as the police will do nothing, he still works, runs his own business, isn;t rich by any means, but he has enough to look after himself.
I feel terrible but think this is one lesson he is going to have to learn the really hard way.
I do so hope the man you saw has help.

Frightened and embarrassed definitely! The BBC News needs to have more reminders about this during news programmes. Reinforcement is essential.

I used to work at a print shop that did shipping. And we'd get people who wanted to send off those scam contests' 'fees' to Australia and Canada by courier to ensure it got there.

My boss was very adamant, but gentle, in explaining to them that by looking at the address, he was familiar with these outfits and that they were scams. One woman broke down in tears as she thought it was the answer to all her problems as she thought she would get her hundred thousand payout.

Oh dear, the problem is people want the scams to be real. They inevitably involve promises of riches or hard luck stories and people can't help themselves. Well done for trying.

I hope he was not acting under any duress................

VERY well done Solitaire for having the courage to intervene. That is such a difficult decision and one never knows the immediate outcome of such an act. Seems yours may have a positive result. Certainly hope so......Again.....Bravo you

Should add, this was quite a few years ago, before such scams became so common and there was a lot less general awareness.

Jalima, one these evil b*stards have talked to their victims and realised how naive/vulnerable they are - my neighbour certainly fell into this category - I think they realise that they can tell them anything and they'll be believed.

Mind you it's not just the naive elderly who can be caught. Friend of mine was phoned at work by someone who sounded so terribly nice and reassuring, to tell her that her purse had been stolen (it had, from an office to which the public had access) but not to worry, they were on to the thieves, who were about to use her card to get some money out of a cash machine. But she could just give them a few details...

She was so panicked at finding her purse gone, and the person sounded so nice and kind, she gave them what they needed to know.

And realised the moment she'd hung up how daft she'd been, but it was too late.

Well done Solitaire you tried.

Unfortunately, some scammers pretending to be the police have even told people that the bank staff are scammers and stealing money from accounts and that they must on no account tell anyone in the bank why they are withdrawing the money.

I would never ever use Western Union to transfer money unless it was to someone I knew well. It can't be traced back or refunded. So, why is Western Union unsafe for online transactions?

I had £6000 transferred from my account once. The bank rang to confirm the transaction, but not in time to stop the transfer. They treated it as fraud, so I did not lose out. Another customer had the same kind of transfer. Interestingly, both transfers were to Western Union.

roses excellent post

Well done for intervening Solitaire you did your best to prevent him losing his money.
If only more people were willing to intervene instead of holding back and being embarrassed.I chased after and held an escaping toddler outside the supermarket a few years ago, people looked at him but didn't stop him.Took him back inside just as a
Relieved Grandma came flying out to look for him! We should all intervene at times.

My neighbour was paying her scamsters via Western Union, too.