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At our monthly coffee morning on 12 Nov we had a very interesting presentation from Malcolm Phillips, the Fraud Victim Support Officer at West Berkshire Council. Malcolm works with the Public Protection Partnership helping people who have become victims of scams (phone, email and trader scams) and, most importantly, helping people like us to avoid them in the first place. He said that most victims used to be the over 75s, but nowadays all age groups are vulnerable apparently. Malcolm’s main message was always to be vigilant (“Assume nothing, Believe nothing and Challenge everything”) and there are call screening systems available too that can help. However, if you are unfortunate and get caught by one of these scams, and we all receive these calls and emails and it’s so easy to respond unwittingly, Malcolm says let him know (at malcolm.phillips@westbeks.gov.uk) and he will see what he can do. There’s a lot more information available about the problem, for example, a publication “Scamwise - Spotting, avoiding and reporting scams" from Independent Age, a national charity providing support for older people (https://www.independentage.org).