This Yorkshire police force has seen a huge surge in online shopping scams since lockdown

North Yorkshire Police says it has seen a "massive increase" in reports of fraud through popular buy and sell websites since the restrictions were announced on March 23.

From phones to puppies, people in the county have be scammed out of thousands, both buying and selling through the sites.

Andy Fox, Financial Abuse Safeguarding Officer for North Yorkshire Police, said: "I have seen a massive increase in eBay-type frauds [during lockdown].

"People still want to spend online while they are at home, and generally speaking, people are buying all sorts from phones to puppies.

"Very often, coronavirus is being used as an excuse as to why goods haven't arrived. The scammer will convince the buyer to pay outside of Paypal."

Mr Fox added that both buyers and sellers were falling victim to the scams.

Buyers may spend money on goods to find they either never arrive, or are completely different to what was advertised on the site.

Sellers meanwhile were sending goods off before realising they had not received the money for the item.

He said: "It's not necessarily buyers or sellers, it's a mixture of both.

"If you're selling an iPhone, for example, and you send the goods off, we are finding that people later realise no money has been received at all. Or sometimes people are buying goods and realise it has been wrongly advertised."

Mr Fox said that younger people "tended to be a little more gullible", although there were victims of all ages.

A recent report by money.co.uk found that online shopping had surged since lockdown, with a 29 per cent rise in sales for non-essential items such as fashion and beauty.

But despite the reported rise in shopping scams, Mr Fox said other types of scam had seen a drop in recent weeks.

"The telephone scams have gone down," he said.

"The one we saw a massive spike in recently was the email scam which threatened to reveal footage of the victim watching porn from the cameras in their phones and laptops. We were getting about 30 reports a week of these, whereas before we would normally receive two or three a month.

"They were terrifying for the victim as some seemed to know real passwords which people had previously used. These have gone down again since then, though.

A spokeswoman for Action Fraud said online shopping and auction fraud was "over 46 per cent higher than pre-lockdown reporting trends".

The spokeswoman said: "Criminals are experts at impersonating people, organisations and the police. They spend hours researching you hoping you’ll let your guard down for just a moment.

"They can contact you by phone, email, text, on social media, or in person. They will try to trick you into parting with your money, personal information, or buying goods or services that don’t exist."

Business owners should also be aware of criminals masquerading as customers.

The spokeswoman added: "Criminals are experts at impersonating people, organisations and the police. They will spend hours researching your business, hoping you will let your guard down for just a moment."

People using online selling sites are encouraged to think about parting with their money or information, challenge whether requests or goods may be fake, and contact their bank and authorities immediately if they suspect they have been scammed.