The scam involves fraudsters purporting to be from an ‘official’ service which protects against nuisance calls. The scammers target households that are weary of endless nuisance phone calls, and offer a paid-for service that they claim will block cold callers. The service is offered at a very small and attractive monthly tariff and requires the householder to provide full bank details.
Callers claim to be from a company called TPS, or to offer an enhanced version of the TPS’ call blocking service. However this service is always free of charge from the Telephone Preference Scheme (TPS) and they would never ask for bank details or call you out of the blue. The only reason TPS would phone is to return a phone call. So if you do receive a call claiming to be from the TPS, you can assume it’s false. Islanders are reminded to always exercise extreme caution when providing bank or card details to individuals over the telephone and not to provide any details to cold callers regardless of how confident of persuasive they may seem; if in doubt hang up.
Anyone who falls victim to this scam and believes they have lost money, should report it to the Police on 612612
