Growing number of pensioners duped by gangs selling details of vulnerable

The Yorkshire Post has uncovered cases of vulnerable elderly residents being left unable to afford food or pay basic utility bills after losing everything in bogus lottery scams, time-share offers, or receiving emails saying relatives have been injured abroad and they need to send money.

Once they reply to one message, their details are sold on to other fraudsters and they become bombarded with scam appeals over the internet and through the post.

In one recent case in Batley, care workers removed enough scam letters to fill three bin bags from an elderly man’s home.

As Yorkshire’s elderly population rockets – the number of over-65s in North Yorkshire alone is predicted to grow by 50 per cent within the next eight years – and more pensioners go online to stay in touch with their families, there are growing fears that the problem will escalate in the years ahead.

The situation is made more difficult because many of those affected are reluctant to tell relatives or deal with the authorities.

“The hardest thing is persuading clients to stop,” said Angela Cawthra, an elderly debt management adviser with Leeds Older People’s Forum who has been dealing with 10 such cases in the past three months.

“There was one Nigerian investment scam recently where a client had lost £25,000, he was still convinced he was going to get £1.3m back. Obviously a lot more people are online and the younger people can ignore these emails, the older people tend to believe it because it is on the internet.

“It is really difficult to persuade them of the dangers.

“I have one client in Leeds who was a professor from one of the top universities and who has sent money all over the world to schemes saying he is going to win lots of money.

“You cannot get through. Even if the police would be involved, he would not speak to them.

“They don’t tell their families.

“This is only going to go one way, and that is up,” she said.