DURING a spate of scamming incidents, victims were asked to make cash withdrawals by fraudsters pretending to be from Dorset Police.

Following the series of reports, mostly in the Shaftesbury area, officers are issuing a warning to the public.

On August 20 and 21 those purporting to be from Dorset Police or other police forces were calling victims for cash, in particular targeting elderly residents.

Sergeant James Francis, of North Dorset Police, said: “While in most cases those targeted have realised this could potentially be a scam and have alerted us, there have been cases where money has been handed over to these fraudsters.

“Dorset Police or any other force will not cold call people and ask them to make withdrawals in this way. We would urge anyone with doubts about the validity of a caller to take steps to verify their legitimacy and ring them back via an official, publically available number, which for Dorset Police would be 101.

“Never give personal information such as bank details out over the phone."

Sergeant Francis added: “The offenders do appear to be targeting elderly residents and we would ask people to look out for elderly family members or neighbours and make sure they are aware of this potential scam.”

Anyone who believes they have been targeted by scammers is asked to report it to Dorset Police at dorset.police.uk, via email 101@dorset.pnn.police.uk or by calling 101.