Burnham-On-Sea Police have this week joined a force-wide operation to target criminals and ensure people know how to stay safe from doorstep crooks during national Rogue Trader Week.
Local PCSOs handed out information and leaflets at Burnham-On-Sea Post Office, as pictured, and also travelled with the local mobile library service at stops across the Burnham area to spread the word to local residents.
Chief Inspector Sharon Baker, who co-ordinated the operation, said: “Rogue Traders are unscrupulous cold callers who offer to do work and ask for cash up front, carry it out to a poor standard or not at all, do work unnecessarily, or overcharge.”
“Though thankfully this doesn’t happen often, it does disproportionately affect older people – who are more likely to be at home during the day. It can have a significant impact on their wellbeing as well as their finances. We’ve been giving information on avoiding these scams directly to senior citizens and asking people to look out for their vulnerable family and friends.”
“We teamed up with Trading Standards officers to carry out joint patrols across the area. As well as talking to householders where work was being done, we’ve stopped and checked out tradespeople in their vans, offering them advice on consumer law. Reputable tradespeople support our efforts to target the crooks who give the whole profession a bad name.”
During the week two men after getting a call from a bank concerned about an elderly customer.
Police and Trading Standards officers have also been carrying out joint patrols, visiting households where work is being carried out.
The officers checked that the work was being carried out to appropriate standards and that the householders had been offered a 14-day cooling-off period.
Officers also raised awareness through visiting banks and Post Offices, leaflet drops, displays in supermarkets and garden centres, joining Meals on Wheels to visit vulnerable people, messages to Neighbourhood Watch groups, holding beat surgeries and calling into libraries, churches, doctors’ surgeries, coffee mornings.
Pitured: Top, PCSO Andy Dancy in Burnham-On-Sea Police Office this week
