A PENSIONER has told how he almost lost £10,000 to a bogus police scam.

The 88-year-old from Sherfield English, who does not want to be named, withdrew the sum from his bank account after being contacted by a man who called himself Andy Hamilton and claimed to be from Hammersmith Police in London.

“He told me that the police had a man in the cells at Hammersmith Police station who had reportedly withdrawn £10,000 from my bank account. He was calm, and my wife who was listening in on the other line thought he had a Nigerian accent,” said the OAP.

The pensioner was instructed by the conman to transfer money into his Santander account and withdraw £10,000 at Totton. A courier would collect the cash from his home and it would then be checked to see if it was counterfeit and also for DNA and fingerprints.

A second caller, purporting to be from Santander, then rang the pensioner.

“They were very convincing. I put the phone down and rang the number I had on my Santander card. I was convinced it was the bank,” said the pensioner.

He then went into Romsey to check if his cash was still in his Santander account and then went to Totton to withdraw the £10,000.

He took the money home and it was then that his wife became suspicious and rang the Metropolitan Police. She was shocked to learn that no officer called Andy Hamilton worked at Hammersmith police station.

The couple immediately alerted officers at Romsey Police Station.

“They police came out very quickly and waited for the courier, a local taxi to arrive. They spoke to him and the police took us to the police station with the money and put it in a safe,” said the pensioner.

“I had a very lucky escape. If I hadn’t been for my wife they would have got away with my £10,000. My wife saved my bacon,” he said.

“What bothers me is where they got all the information about me, like my phone number and bank details,” he concluded.

Others have not been so lucky. A 70-year-old Wellow man handed over £10,000 to a taxi driver for delivery to an address in London.

Inspector Jackie Willson is warning pensioners to be on their guard.

“We are investigating a series of frauds concentrated on elderly and vulnerable residents, “ she said.

“The perpetrators are cold calling and purporting to be police officers investigating a financial offence involving the victims’ accounts. They will ask for your assistance and state that the cash needs to be checked for fingerprints, DNA, or possible that the cash is counterfeit. There are no circumstances in which the police would need to withdraw sums of money from an account and if for some reason we needed to seize money for an examination, the officer would have to be present to seize and evidence it.

Inspector Willson advised people never to give out personal information about bank accounts over the phone.