Darren Millar
Clwyd West AM and Shadow Minister for Older People, Darren Millar, is supporting Age Cymru’s Scams Awareness Month in May and hopes it will help reduce the number of people falling victim to phone, doorstep and internet scams in Clwyd West.
Figures from The Office of Fair Trading suggest people in the UK lose £3.5 billion a year to scammers and older people who fall prey to scammers lose an average £1,200 each.
Darren recently led a debate in the National Assembly on protecting older people from scams and doorstep crime and last month supported proposals to ban doorstep callers from Abergele.
He said:
“Too many vulnerable people in Wales are falling victim on a daily basis to phone, doorstep and internet scams, which aim to make money through deceit and intimidation. I therefore very much welcomed Age Cymru’s Scams Awareness Month. It is crucial that people are aware of the range of scams out there, including fake lotteries, psychics and rogue builders.
“As well as robbing elderly and vulnerable people of their lifesavings, scams can cause considerable distress and severely limit someone’s quality of life.
“Age Cymru’s research shows that more than 2,500 scams were reported to Trading Standards in Wales between February 2012 and February 2013, but this figure could be the tip of the iceberg. The Office of Fair Trading believes that only 5% of scams are ever reported. That means up 50,000 scams could have been committed. Older people should be able to live in dignity and security and be free of this type of exploitation.”
Gerry Keighley from Age Cymru said:
“Many older people who are scammed lose their life savings, their self-esteem, dignity and even their will to live. Families can be devastated as some older people end up trusting the scammers more than their own relatives. Age Cymru’s ‘Scams and Swindles’ campaign is calling for greater protection to be provided for older people from scams by the communication companies used by the criminals to facilitate their scams.”
