Scam attempts totalling more than £42,000 struck down by West Suffolk Council
The report's found they've stopped money from being paid out to scammers
Scam attempts totalling more than £42,000 have been caught by a district council, a report has shown.
The figures for West Suffolk were revealed during yesterday’s performance and audit scrutiny committee, where members were presented with the council’s annual fraud report.
It showed the council had stopped a total of £42,294 being paid out to scammers — this was broken down into £41,916 relating to fake cheques, and a further £378 on credit card chargebacks — and five attempts at salary mandate fraud were also blocked.
On top of this, more than 5,000 phishing attempts were received by the local authority each month, including scam emails, text messages, and phone calls.
Addressing the attempts to use counterfeit checks, the council said it had now reduced the number of its accounts from which cheques could be cashed out.
The report comes against the backdrop of a successful bank mandate fraud attempt in July last year which saw West Suffolk Council scammed out of around £52,000.
Since then, the authority has put several measures in place to prevent further scams from working, including increased staff training, guidance and strengthened procedures.
Other fraud figures also included identifying 350 cases, totalling £349,775, where households were no longer eligible for a single person discount but hadn’t informed the Anglia Revenues Partnership — the council confirmed this did not mean money had been paid out.