Echo editor Kevan Blackadder has a warning for us all about a con with a difference:
It started with what seemed like a routine call to my mobile phone.
A clearly concerned but polite man wanted to let me know that I'd missed a delivery to my house in Woodmancote. The package had been left with a neighbour.
He said the delivery courier had made a mistake and the package wasn't actually for me. He asked me to collect it from number 25 and leave it outside my house the following morning. The delivery company would return to collect it.
I started to get suspicious. "What's in the parcel?" I asked. "An iPad," the man replied. "You haven't ordered an iPad have you? So it can't be for you." His foreign accent had become stronger and he was suddenly sounding anxious. "I'll call you later to make sure you have it." The line went dead.
I started to ask myself questions. If the parcel wasn't for me, how did he have my mobile number? If I left the parcel outside and it disappeared, it would surely be my responsibility? There was no way I was going to do what the man asked.
I collected the parcel from my neighbour when I got home from work and it was indeed an iPad.
My mobile rang again. I asked how he had my number. "We've delivered to you before." I asked what would happen if the parcel disappeared from outside my house. "Don't worry. You live in a safe area, it will be fine."
My mind was made up. I said that the only way I would return the parcel was face-to-face. They could come to collect it from me at work and they would have to give me a receipt. The man said that would be fine. I have not heard a word from him since.
I do already have an iPad and pay a monthly fee to 3 by standing order. I visited their shop in Cheltenham's High Street and they were very concerned. It quickly became clear my account had been hacked.
But what was the con? 3 checked their records and said that two weeks earlier I'd contacted them to review my account. I hadn't.
Apparently I had agreed an upgrade that meant increasing my monthly payments significantly and I had been offered a new iPad as part of the deal.
Someone, somewhere had been set to get an iPad for nothing and I was going to be paying their on-going contract.
Although I was far from happy my account had been hacked, 3 have been helpful and I have new security settings. The iPad has been returned to them at their cost. I have also reported what happened to the police.
But this is a con I've never come across before and it would have been so easy to have fallen for it.
Be suspicious if you get a strange call. And perhaps, like me, you'll now be keeping a closer eye than ever on your bank account and standing orders.
