A fake horse racing tipster claiming to work in Croydon is conning punters across the country out of thousands of pounds.

The trickster claims to be a racing pundit “Frank Farrell” who is based in Croydon and gives the phone number 0208 819 8276.

A Trading standards spokesman said: “The scam has been around for several years, but many people still get taken in by the promise of easy winnings. ‘Frank’ will promise a free tip that can’t fail for this weekend.

“Anyone who falls for the fraud will call up on Saturday morning for the name of a horse that is 100 per cent certainty. But of course there is no such thing. If the horse wins people often use this as a sign that they can trust Frank and so start paying him for future tips. If it loses then he simply apologises and offers the unlucky gambler another free tip for next week.”

Councillor Steve O’Connell, cabinet member for safety, said: “Although this con-artist claims to be based in Croydon he probably isn’t local, as the address he uses is simply a business mail-box to receive any replies to his letter. However, we do want people to be on the look-out for any information that could lead us to track him down. This is a serious fraud that we would very much like to stop in its tracks.”

These scams tend to last for about five or six weeks and net the criminals about £100,000.

Once someone has fallen prey to the con, their details will be circulated amongst the criminal gangs who run the operations. This often results in many more ‘get rich quick’ schemes being pushed in their direction - all of which are completely fake.

For more information go to www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/watch_out/Commonscams/racing-tipsters