SCAMMERS racked up more than £1,000 of fraudulent purchases in an internet spending spree after conning an Ilkley man into handing over his personal details through an elaborate Covid phone sting.
Christopher Short, 76, received a text message on Friday purporting to be from NHS Track and Trace and telling him he had been in close contact with someone who had tested positive for Coronavirus.
Having recently attended a packed meeting and with an immunocompromised wife, Mr Short, who is a member of the Rotary Club of Ilkley Wharfedale, clicked on a link in the message to order a testing kit.
But the website it took him to was a convincing but fake NHS site and instructed Mr Short to fill in his personal details and pay for delivery of the non-existent kit with his credit card.
This gave the scammers enough to allow them to immediately start spending on his card at Argos and other stores, purchasing items worth more than £1,000.
But the crooks didn’t stop there — they then phoned Mr Short pretending to be from his credit card company and obtaining text codes from him to allow them to authorise the purchases — and even tried to get him to transfer all the money in his current and savings account to their own bank details.
Now Mr Short is warning others to beware of such scams. He says, “I know it probably makes me look stupid because I never, ever click on an unknown link. But a couple of days before I had been to an inside meeting for…
