Age UK Northumberland providing fraud and scams support to older people

Older Northumbrians will be give training and advice on identifying and dealing with scams.

The programme, funded by Lloyds Banking Group, will help to prevent older people from falling victim to scams by increasing their knowledge and confidence to both recognise and deal with attempted scams.

It will also provide support to older fraud victims unfortunately recovering recovering from having been victim to a scam.

Older people can be particularly vulnerable to fraud and scams, which can have a serious emotional and financial impact, and can damage quality of life and wellbeing for many.

Sophisticated scams have been on the rise during the Covid pandemic, with criminals devising even more ways to target those they believe to be vulnerable.

Amy Whyte, head of charitable services and operations at Age UK Northumberland, said: “We’re really pleased to be launching the Age UK Scams Prevention and Support Programme across Northumberland.

"Scams can have a devastating effect on older victims – in England and Wales an older person becomes a victim of fraud every 40 seconds, which is over 800,000 older people every year.

"This shows us just how important this programme is to try and keep the older people in Northumberland as safe as possible when it comes to financial crime.”

To find out more about Age UK Northumberland’s Scams Prevention and Support Programme, visit https://www.ageuk.org.uk/northumberland/, or contact 01670 784 800.