A woman has spoken out about nearly being taken in by scam callers, in the hope of preventing it happening to anyone else.

Jeanne Hudson, West Alvington, received a call from a man calling himself ‘Kevin Williams’ saying he was from BT Openreach and there was a problem with security on her mobile phone.

During a one-and-a-half-hour phone call with him, he gained access to her computer and documents, a scan of her driving licence and was very close to getting her bank details.

“I’m not stupid” Jeanne said, “I kept asking him to prove who he was, he gave me phone numbers, a BT employee number, an email address, he was very professional and very persuasive.”

Jeanne said two men from Cormac Solutions Ltd were cutting the grass outside her house, and she wanted to talk to them about something, so she asked them to knock on the door when they were finished.

By the time they knocked, the scammer had asked her to buy online security systems and she was starting to really doubt he was genuine, so she asked one of the contractors, Sean and Ben, to talk to the guy on the phone.

Jeanne pretended that the contractor was her brother who had just popped round to see her, and passed over the phone. It was then that the scammer’s demeanour changed. Jeanne said he got “stroppy” with Ben and said he could only deal with her.

“He started getting angry, when we asked him to call back tomorrow, which wouldn’t have been a problem for a genuine BT person, he got angry and said it had to be done now or my computer, mobile and landline would be crashed.

“Ben said ‘I don’t believe you’ and hung up. He called back a few minutes later, I answered, and asked him to call back, he got angry again and I hung up.”?Jeanne was very thankful for Sean and Ben for helping her out: “They advised me not to call anyone until I had received an incoming call, to prove he wasn’t still on the line, and they unplugged my computer for me and advised me to turn off my phone.

“I felt quite shaken after the whole thing. He was so convincing and professional and could give me so much information. He knew my name, but not my surname, and he wouldn’t tell me my date-of-birth, he kept sidestepping the questions I was asking him.

“A friend of mine lost £5,000 to these people recently, and he’s not stupid either. You have to be so careful. My advice would be to ask them to call back tomorrow, that’s when he started getting angry and I knew a real BT employee wouldn’t do that.”