Recent Alerts from the Police
We are currently working to put posters around Doddinghurst so that everyone can be aware of some of the latest scams and threats. We plan to publish just a few of the threats each month in the hope of making the information more memorable so have created five posters for the first few months of 2011. Note that the May poster was changed to reflect garden thefts. Follow these links:January
February
March
April
May
June
July
July Extra Stop Press Warning
August
October
November
December
Every year pepole have cars stolen because they have left them unsupervised for a few moments with the engines running to defrost the windows. The police remind us that insurance companies are very unlikely to accept a claim in these circumstances. Painful if you lose your car and get a hike in your premium. Devastating if you bought the car with a loan and have to keep paying the loan for the thief to drive it because the insurance won't pay. Catastrophic if you now can't get to work as you have no car.
Received November 2010 but still happening:-
A company cold calls you at home and states there is a problem with the anti-virus software on your computer. They know your surname - probably from the 'phone book. They sound very plausible and offer to help you download and install a programme, free of charge, to help you update your protection.
They can be quite persistent and when this programme is downloaded and installed on your computer they can then access your personal information including passwords and bank details.
The standard advice if cold called is to terminate the call without handing over any personal information.
If you are contacted please notify Consumer Direct on 08454 040506, providing as much information as possible.
For more information visit www.getsafeonline.gov.uk.
Added 27th November:-
Check your supermarket bills. A local
checkout operator has recently been found adding a cashback to the bill
but keeping the cash.
There were several burglaries around the village a few weeks
back,
mostly aimed at
stealing keys to expensive cars. In one case the car's owner was
followed to her house and the burglary attempted later. This suggests
that cars are being stolen to order. There have also been some local
thefts of equipment from cars - Sat-Navs in particular. In several
cases there is some doubt as to whether the car windows were all fully
shut, making access easy.
The latest burglary technique is rather worrying. Burglars are
looking for houses with integral garages that have up-and-over doors.
These doors are reputedly very easy to force open, giving acess in many
cases to tools and to a relatively insecure door to the rest of the
house. Fortunately relatively cheap, simple but reasonably effective
supplementary locks are available to make up-and-over doors more secure.
The latest target of thieves in
the area (but not yet in Doddinghurst) is the expensive catalytic
converters fixed underneath all petrol-powered cars. Everyone is
advised to keep their cars as well secured as possible at all times, as
it only takes a few minutes with a small angle grinder to steal several
hundred pounds-worth of converter and render the car unuseable.
Emma Clark, our local crime reduction officer sent some valuable advice located at BurglaryPrevention.html .
There have also been some very clever and convincing scams.
Examples include:
Telephone calls from people claiming to be from banks or Visa talking about unauthorised payments from your account (Yes there will be if you continue talking to them).
Cards put through your door by an outfit called PDS (Parcel delivery Service) telling you that they have been unable to deliver a parcel and that you should call them. The number they give is very expensive premium rate and there is no parcel anyway. Call Crimestoppers or Trading Standards instead!
Variants on the 'Your virus scanner has a problem" scam.
Telephone calls from people
claiming that your computer has a virus and volunteering to take you
through a procedure to remove it. (They either actually
install one so that
they can steal your bank details or they charge you lots of money to
remove
the virus that you don't have)
Alarm companies calling or phoning and claiming, falsely, to be
working with the police to offer very cheap burglar alarms. The alarms
are cheap, but then cost you a
fortune in maintenance charges. One such company calls
itsself SAS Security, but there are others. Click
for more detail on this.
In General:-
Doddinghurst seems to have some of the lowest crime statistics around. But people do drive away to other areas. So bear in mind that we have had reports of many clever attempts at distracting or fooling people into leaving their cars insecure.If you get into your car on your own, you might care to lock yourself in using the central locking system.
Don't be fooled by someone who comes across the car park to ask for directions with a map or papers. Or someone who slaps a poster on your rear window. When you get out to help with directions or remove the poster, your valuables or the whole car might disappear.
When at home, don't forget to hide your car keys away from the front door. Even locally we have heard of cars being stolen by the keys being taken from near the door. And don't forget that your insurance may well be invalid if you leave the car unlocked - even briefly.
Keep an eye on those number plates. If they get stolen and used on another car, you could have some uncomfortable interviews about any crimes in which that car is involved. It is possible to make the number plates harder to steal by fitting tamper-proof screws or to fit number plates which are destroyed by any attempt to remove them.