Aberdeenshire Council’s latest Trading Standards bulletin warning of local scams has just been published.

DOORSTEP CRIME
We have recently received a report from the Buchan area of a man who goes door to door flyering his services as a gardener.

This same man is suspected of fly tipping garden waste on private land which will cost the landowner a substantial amount of money to clean up. We are also aware that he is not registered with SEPA for a waste carrier’s licence and so is unlikely to pay the fees for commercial waste services to the council. This selfish individual would rather pocket his gains and let someone else clean up his mess.

Members of the public enlisting gardeners, landscapers, roofers or anyone who transports someone else’s waste as part of their business can help reduce the instances of fly-tipping by asking to see the trader’s SEPA Waste Carrier’s Registration Document (often just referred to as a SEPA licence). If they can’t produce one, there’s a possibility that your waste may end up being dumped once it’s left your location.

Trading Standards ask that you stick only to those tradesmen who can produce their SEPA licence.
Details of the SEPA Document can be found at: https://www.sepa.org.uk/regulations/waste/waste-carriers-and-brokers/

VERIFICATION CODE SCAM
A resident in Moray was recently called on her mobile phone from a blocked number by someone claiming to be from her bank, to report suspicious activity on her bank account.

The caller then asked the resident for the verification code which had just been texted to her, which the resident gave, resulting in a substantial loss from her account. The truth of the matter was that the caller was a scammer who had tried to access the resident’s bank account online, triggering the bank to send out a real verification code to the resident. When the resident passed the code, that was the final piece of the jigsaw the scammer needed to access her bank account.

If you receive such a call from a ‘bank’ asking for a verification code, please NEVER give it up. The caller could be anyone and the bank should have no need for the code.

Importantly, the scammer would have needed some of the resident’s personal and banking information already, such as passwords and PIN numbers. This might have been obtained a number of ways; stealing bank statements from rubbish bags or bins, or accessing written details from notebooks or similar.

These possibilities underscore the need to store confidential information securely and disposing of it by shredding or burning, rather than simply throwing it in the bin.

HMRC SCAM
A resident from Garioch recently reported a notable scam to Trading Standards which is based on making a tax a claim to HMRC.

The company concerned sends out emails to potential customers advising them that they could make a claim to HMRC if they have been working from home recently or if they wear a uniform as part of their work duties.

The company offers to act as the customer’s agent in making the claim to HMRC for any overpaid taxes and refunds due. A binding contract is then agreed between the company and the customer. However, what is not disclosed to the customer is that any pay-out from HMRC is made to the company firstly and they will then take their fees of about a third of the pay-out before giving the customer the remainder.

As the company is acting as the customer’s agent, HMRC must make the pay-out to the company. In the instance reported to Trading Standards, the company concerned took over £1000 for their services.

In many instances if someone is due a tax rebate, HMRC will attend to it automatically but if you believe you may be due a rebate which has not been paid, a good place to start the process of claiming is via HMRC directly via their website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs and to ignore offers from commercial companies to do so on your behalf.

SPOOFING
One north Aberdeenshire resident recently received a phone call from a number which showed up on the Caller ID as being another local number. When the resident answered the call, a male with a foreign accent spoke, claiming to be from a well-known media company. The resident immediately realised that it wasa scam or sales call and hung up.

Scams are big business these days and scammers often use computers to assist them, some as auto-dialers to go through a list of phone numbers successively looking for a victim and some to disguise (spoof) the real number from which they’re calling behind a local number.

Trading Standards would like to reinforce that just because a local number appears on your Caller ID that it won’t be a scammer or a high pressure sales call on the line, especially if it’s an unknown number or a call at a strange time of the day, and we would ask that you still remain vigilant and don’t pass any personal information until you’re satisfied the call is genuine.

If you think you’ve received a call from a spoofed number, you may be able to obtain the number via the 1471 facility or by contacting your service provider.

We would ask that you then contact Trading Standards to report the matter.

CONTACTS
For urgent Trading Standards matters, contact Aberdeenshire Council’s Trading Standards at 01467 537222. For non-urgent enquiries, please contact Consumer Advice Scotland at https://www.consumeradvice.scot/ or on 0808 164 6000.

Contact Police Scotland on 999 if you need urgent police assistance or 101 for non-urgent matters.