Dear Anne
Last week we were parked on the access road to a local car park when an officially-dressed man approached us. He told us that as of three days ago the rules had changed and we had to register my Blue Badge to park there. As we hadn’t done so, we must pay £2 at the car park ticket machine so he could cancel a pending fine. Advised by the ‘official’ my husband went to the machine and it swallowed his card. The man asked me to try a different card, which also disappeared into the machine. We then went to move our car. Very soon after a large amount of cash was stolen from each of our bank accounts. Please warn your readers, in case there’s a similar scam in their area. The man was very plausible and it never crossed our minds to grasp what he was doing. Thank you Anne for letting others know and sending you best wishes. (Full name and address supplied.)
I’ve known our reader for a very long time and, together with her husband, they’ve always been exceptionally vigilant and taken every possible care. They were terribly upset to discover they’d been scammed. There was also the added worry of losing their cards along with a lot of money. Additionally, they’d to wait several days for both banks to investigate. In due course it was concluded they were telling the truth, had indeed been robbed and were reimbursed by their banks. They’d not had their Blue Badge for long, so were unsure of all the requirements. Our reader asked me to tell you about her dreadful experience, hoping it may save just one of you from suffering the pain of what’s happened to them.
