TWO pensioners have lost thousands of pounds to a scam where fraudsters are pretending to be police officers.

An 87-year-old man from St Leonards lost more than £10,000 on Wednesday (May 20) and an 84-year-old woman from Hastings lost nearly £2,500 on Tuesday. [may 19] after being tricked into thinking they were speaking to Metropolitan police officers.

Since Monday police in the area have received twelve reports of attempted frauds. The thieves are pretending to be detective constables using names such as DC Daniel Ransom, DC David Ramsden, DC Michael O'Connor, DC Ray Marshall, DCI Robert Freeman, DCI Daniel Redford from the fraud squad or fraud investigation team.

They all claim the person's card has been cloned and used in towns miles away like Birmingham or in London and that further attempts were made to withdraw smaller amounts from cash machines.

The person is advised to withdraw all their money from their saving account and is sometimes warned the money will need to be forensically examined.

They claim Sussex Police are aware and that plain clothed police officers would watch the transaction at the bank as they suspected that the staff are involved.

Later a courier calls at their home to exchange an agreed password and collect the cash.

The victims are also asked if they have other accounts and have any other money to withdraw.

Sergeant Dave Townsend said the Hastings Neighbourhood Police Team was working with banks to make them aware of the fraud.

He said: “If you think you have been contacted by a fraudster and have doubts during the call, hang up the phone, allow about ten minutes to pass before calling your bank or building society and police to make sure that your phone line is completely cleared or ideally use another phone.

"Please share this information with your family, friends and neighbours. The more people who know about this, the less chance the fraudsters have of getting their hands on other people's money."