SCAM AWARENESS

Last year the Parish Council in conjunction with North Yorkshire County Council Trading Standards distributed a door/window sticker to properties in Kirkby Malzeard and Laverton villages together with an explanatory letter containing general information on some of the Scams currently being used by criminals.

Many scams these days are carried out on-line or by phone, but postal fraud and door-step crime still persists. The sticker should help to deter those purporting to be legal traders but who actually aim either to distract you whilst a colleague tries to gain entry to your property or will try and sell you a poor quality item for an exorbitant price using a 'sob-story’ to gain sympathy, and who might ultimately resort to intimidation to secure the sale.

If you have concerns about door step callers of this nature phone Trading Standards immediately afterwards on 03454 04 05 06 or contact the Police on 101. In an emergency phone 999. The advice from Trading Standards was that such gangs normally work in village areas rather than targeting individual rural properties which is why the stickers were only issued in the two villages. 

Everyone regardless of the location of your property may however be susceptible to on-line, phone or postal fraud and information on some of these frauds can be found in the following newspaper article  Fraud article  and on websites such as the following: