A FARNHAM piano teacher is keen to put her experience of falling victim to a telephone scam behind her, as she sets to appear on Channel 4’s Come Dine with Me next week.

Caroline Maxwell-Gale, who previously taught at the former Pilgrims’ Way School, More House School, and St Polycarp’s Catholic Primary School, was defrauded of £16,000 on June 14, after taking a call from somebody claiming to be from BT’s technical department.

A spokesperson from Surrey Police said: “The man is believed to have told the victim that there were issues with the security of frequently visited websites, including online banking webpage.”

Having noticed some “funny things” happening on her laptop, the 57 year old believed scammers when they told her that her IP address had been hacked.

The police spokesperson added: “The caller asked the victim to download an app in order to access her browser and solve the ‘problems’.”

After downloading these ‘security’ programmes, Caroline was told to log into her online banking but was not to tell them any passwords, unaware the defrauders had already gained access to her screen. A total of 1,001 alerts appeared on the screen, which she was asked to count, and scammers told her those were attempts to hack her account.

During the two-and a half hour phone call, fraudsters also asked the mother of three to download an app to her mobile phone, which she also uses to bank.

Told that her mobile phone was causing interference, Caroline took it into another room as instructed.

Delay tactics allowed the criminals to begin transferring money from her account, using access to her mobile phone to gain the One-Time Passcode. This message was then deleted, leaving Caroline unaware of the transaction.

Scammers told Caroline that a BT engineer would be out to see her “that evening or tomorrow”, which she “would’ve waited for and lost everything”.

The length of the call meant Caroline had to re-schedule piano lessons, one of which was with Louise Davies. Louise’s husband, Chris Davies, told his wife he suspected it was a scam and Louise “burst in” to warn her tutor.

Her first call was to Santander, who froze the account before any further transactions were made, followed by the police where she was offered advice from the ActionFraud team.

Caroline would like to thank Louise and Chris who “saved me thousands and thousands”.

She said: “I felt absolute horror, I would have had to sell my house. I thought ‘oh God, that’s it’.

“All kinds of thoughts go through your head, I thought it was all gone. It was really horrendous.

“I can’t believe they hooked me in, I was putty in their hands - I just didn’t question it. I even kept saying ‘thank you for being so patient with me’.”

Luckily for Caroline, she was reimbursed the money as she had acted quickly in reporting the fraud, had not shown gross negligence and was not complicit.

PC Angus Taylor, who is investigating the fraud, said: “This type of fraud is becoming increasingly common. With smart devices and technology becoming more widely used, fraudsters are using that as an opportunity to scam innocent people.

“Remember that legitimate organisations will never work this way. You will never be contacted out of the blue and be asked to share screens or access to a phone or computer. While it can feel embarrassing if you’ve been scammed, we want you to know that you shouldn’t be.”

The advice comes after Surrey Police launched a campaign on Monday, which will run until August 5, to raise awareness of how fraudsters use cold-calls to dupe, trick and scam victims.

According to ActionFraud, 34 per cent of all reported frauds are enabled by phone-calls. Compare that to 11 per cent of reports coming from scam or phishing emails, and it’s clear to see that talking to someone in conversation is harder to ignore.

Officers will be handing out information cards during awareness days which can be placed next to home phones, acting as a reminder to hang-up the moment you’re asked to provide any form of bank or personal details.

The postcards can also be found at selected doctor’s surgeries, pharmacies, charity shops and churches.

For more information, visit www.surrey.police.uk/fraud, or call ActionFraud on 0300 123 2040 to report any suspicions.