Warning after cold call scammers pretend to offer tax '˜refund' from Northampton Borough Council

Fraudsters pretending to offer a tax rebate from Northampton Borough Council are believed to be targeting townsfolk.
By The Newsroom
Published 14th Mar 2016, 14:55 BST
Updated 14th Mar 2016, 14:59 BST

The borough council is warning the public to be vigilant about receiving calls from fraudsters claiming to be the council and offering a council tax refund by taking their personal details.

There has been a recent reported incident from a resident who took a call and was then told to ring a premium number where they were then asked for their bank details.

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The council says that as a general rule it “does not ring customers to advise them they are in credit and are due a refund.”

A spokesman for the authority said: “We are concerned that these scammers are targeting Northampton residents and we would like to be able to do what we can to try to make people aware.

“When a customer is entitled to a refund we will either refund it immediately and write to them, or write to the customer and ask them to contact us to request the refund.

“If we do contact the customer we will have details of their council tax account and their payment history which we will use to verify who we are.”

Anyone wanting to report a scam phone call in relation to Northampton Borough Council should call 0300 330 7000.