Banks in Sutton are taking action to stop their customers from being tricked into handing over their savings.

Staff at the Sutton High Street Branches of Barclays, HSBC and NatWest raised concerns after many elderly customers came to make large, out-of-character, withdrawals from their accounts.

Dozens of elderly people have been plagued by con artists who claimed they were builders or representing their bank a who then told their targets to withdraw money and hand it over to them.

NatWest claimed to have stopped one of their customers from withdrawing nearly £6,000 from her account after a ‘builder’ called at the elderly person’s house and said they needed to carry out emergency repairs.

Staff were suspicious and stopped the customer from being conned.

Another customer said they had received a phone call from someone claiming to be from HSBC who then told them to withdraw £4,000 from their account as there had been fraudulent activity.

But they were stopped from withdrawing the amount by a member of the counter staff team.

The Mayor of Sutton, Richard Clifton, presented certificates to bank staff, which recognised their work in stopping residents from being conned.

Cllr Clifton, said: “I am pleased to have presented these certificates for the work these bank branches and their staff have done in order to tackle rogue traders and save the public from being defrauded in this way.

“This is great work between the police, Sutton Council and its Trading Standards team and the banks themselves.”

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