It pains me to relate this story because it spoils the picture of gentle crime-free middle England where the biggest thing to happen is for the postman to run off with the vicar’s daughter/wife but I think people should be forewarned.

The scam is this: The scammer waits with his car in a car park until he spots a likely victim, naïve young girl, elderly couple, foreign visitors perhaps (?). He watches them park (and if it is a pay and display he has a pretty good idea of how long he will have to wait). The victims come back after their shopping etc to find that the scammer has blocked their exit from the parking place with his car. He says that they damaged his wing mirror/ bashed his car (which of course is damaged) when they parked and that he must have the money from them to pay for the damage. He poses as a foreign student (so they get the sob story first). When they protest he becomes menacing and refuses to move his car until they have paid up. The whole incident is very unpleasant.

The incident: this happened to my mother in law last week in Ledbury, Herefordshire. It was not helped by the fact that she has short term memory loss and actually probably shouldn’t be driving on her own anyway. (She has given up her car this week as a result of this and has been very tearful on the loss of this independence). Luckily, her distress on being wrongly accused and virtually kidnapped in the car park was witnessed by a passer-by who came to her rescue and called the police. The scammer, of course, ‘scarpered’. The Police arrived and said that they knew about this latest scam. The scammer spoke with a eastern European accent and most likely is not a student at all.

I post this story as a warning because it may happen to someone you know who looks vulnerable and perhaps it is an ‘international scam’ that I have not heard about before.

Thanks for this Felicity and I am sorry it happened to your mother. It would be upsetting to anyone!

I am going to make a page on the website for common scams/pickpocket techniques. We have been hearing more and more of them lately. Can I copy your description of this one?

I will start a new thread in the Everything About Travel forum.

Gosh Pauline, this is going to make depressing reading (how sad that we have to be so suspicious of everyone these days) but yes, of course feel free to add our family's experience to your page of scams.

I expect there is many a scam that bites the dust because of people knowing what to look out for/be supicious of. I prevented my husband's wallet being 'lifted' in Barcelona by forewarning him about the ragged bits of card with indecipherable messages on them being pushed in his face as a distraction.