ELDERLY and vulnerable Helensburgh and Lomond residents are being offered free call blocking devices to combat the recent rise in fraud attempts.

Argyll and Bute Council’s trading standards team and Police Scotland have launched the new community safety initiative in response to an increase in the variety of phone scams being reported by Scottish consumers since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The local authority has provided funding for a number of trueCall call blocking devices which are now available free of charge to eligible residents across the region.

Devices have already been installed into addresses of victims of telephone fraud over the past 12 months in Helensburgh, and elsewhere.

PC Laura Evans, local authority liaison officer, said: “The most common types of scams at the moment are telephone and internet scams whereby the caller or person emailing pretends to be someone else, for example someone from your bank, BT, Amazon or Sky.

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“We have a large number of telephone frauds where the caller is told their bank has set up a new account for them and has asked them to transfer their money to this new account.

“Your bank will never ask you to do this and I would encourage people to simply hang up the telephone if you think you are being scammed, or if you are concerned about someone else receiving scam calls, then consider a call blocker.”

The council’s trading standards team have previously fitted 75 trueCall call blockers to vulnerable residents in the area, blocking an estimated 116,951 calls - of which 23,526 will have been scam phone calls - and preventing at least 139 scams.

Last month PC Evans helped launch another community safety initiative, called the Cared for at Home Network, which acts as an alert system for scam attempts in the neighbourhoods of those who sign up.

The most common calls being blocked by trueCall units were misleading sales of insurance for white goods, appliances or Sky equipment and attempts to sell cover for domestic home repairs.

READ MORE: Fraudsters conned Helensburgh woman out of thousands of pounds, say police

As more people signed up to streaming services during lockdown, there was also an increase in calls for scammers purportedly from Amazon Prime, where cold callers said that the recipient’s subscription was due for renewal or that their account had been hacked.

Another type of nuisance call which emerged towards the end of 2020 was the sale of timeshares, possibly in response to widespread issues with travel and accommodation during the pandemic.

An Argyll and Bute Council spokesperson said: “Scammers are unscrupulous with the sole intention of identifying and exploiting the most vulnerable in our communities by obtaining people’s personal data and to encourage them to give the caller their bank details.

“This is often achieved by implying that urgent action is required - a tactic which particularly targets elderly and more vulnerable people.

“The trueCall call blocking unit can give our residents peace of mind, knowing that if the phone rings it will be someone they want to talk to.”

Contact Argyll and Bute trading standards on 01546 605 519 or email trading standards.office@argyll-bute.gov.uk to apply for a free trueCall device.