FORMER Haslemere Mayor Christine Chapman has warned others to beware a sophisticated identity fraud scam after being targeted herself and suffering the damaging knock-on effects.

Mrs Chapman was horrified by the amount of personal information the fraudsters had obtained after they successfully hacked into her BT connection and gained access to her phone calls and emails.

Having "taken over" her landline, they were able to lull her into a false sense of security with their first call, which was identified on her handset as being from her bank.

Fortunately, she was not taken in by the initial call from a woman claiming to be from Internet Security Protect and requesting her to log into her online account to add further safeguards.

For full story, see this week's Haslemere Herald.