Good afternoon all

Just a quick warning about 'courier fraud' especially in the run up to Christmas although this can happen at any time of the year.

This is a type of fraud whereby the fraudster may contact the potential victim by phone or even turn up at their front door.

One example of this is a parcel being delivered to your home by a legitimate delivery company, something which you know that you didn't order (for example a brand new boxed mobile phone) and then a short while later another person (the offender) knocks on your door and gives you a story about their parcel being delivered wrongly to your address and because you know that you didn't order it, hands the parcel over to the offender not realising that this person is now in possession of a shiny new mobile phone that they haven't paid for and potentially the innocent person who's just handed it to them will be the name and or address that the supplier of the phone has on their records as ordering it due to your details being used without your permission.

If this or a similar scenario happens to you, DO NOT hand over the item that was delivered and make contact with the supplier to clarify why it's been delivered to you as you haven't ordered it and also make a report to Action Fraud which you can do online or if you aren't confident about making online reports, ask someone you know who does, you can also contact Kent Police to report this fraud either online or by ringing 101.

The following information is from the Action Fraud website.

Reporting fraud and cyber crime

You can report fraud or cyber crime to Action Fraud any time of the day or night using our online fraud reporting tool.  You can also report and get advice about fraud or cyber crime by calling 0300 123 2040.

The times above represent our core contact centre opening hours, although from time to time we do extend the service we provide to you. 

Action Fraud will not call you unless you have requested us to, and will never ask for your bank details. If you are unsure whether a call is genuine, call the Action Fraud team on 0300 123 2040. Please note this number will be charged at your normal network rate.

If you have inclusive minutes within your mobile tariff then calls to our number are included at no cost. If you have used all of your inclusive minutes then the call will typically cost 35p per minute depending on your network provider.

Textphone 

If you are deaf or hard of hearing you can contact us on textphone 0300 123 2050.

Online advisor - live chat

This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When using web chat you are speaking live to one of our advisors in the contact centre, who can assist with queries or you help fill out an online report. 

Thank you

Steve.