Warning after fake workman charging £500 for fencing repairs never show up to work
20.04.2022 - 21:11
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Police have warned people to be careful after fake workmen scammed residents out of £500 under the promise of fence repairs that never came. Officers from Greater Manchester Police's Rochdale district were called out to reports of "bogus officials" spotted along Tintern Road in Hollin. Once there, they discovered scammers had been out in the area, pretending to be workmen and knocking on doors.
When residents answered, the men asked if they would like their fences repaired, saying the work would cost £500. However, when one household handed over the cash, the workmen scarpered, taking the cash without completing the work.
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Now, residents have been urged to be careful to avoid falling foul to similar tricks. A member of GMP's Middleton policing team posted about the fraud on their social media pages.
They said: "Officers have attended a report of bogus officials operating in the Tintern Rd area of Hollin. They portrayed to be workmen who was working in the area. They asked if they wanted fencing repaired at a cost of £500 and didn’t carry out the work. Please stay vigilant."
The latest warning comes less than two weeks after a man posing as a police officer scammed a victim out of over £7,500 in Wigan, and scammers managed to spoof the phone numbers of the county court in Manchester city centre, using the court's phone number to scam people out of personal details and cash.
Action Fraud, the UK's national reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime, encourages people to take some simple steps to protect themselves from being scammed, starting by refusing to give out personal data to any organisation that hasn't verified their identity. Before handing