TRADING standards officers are still receiving a steady stream of inquiries about telephone scams.

The cons first came to light last year, and trading standards chiefs in Cumbria said they were still receiving about one call a week about the issue.

Spokesman Pat Thomas said that, typically, a caller would ring and tell someone they had won a large prize, perhaps in a lottery, and ask them to send a small amount of money in order to claim a larger prize.

Mr Thomas warned people not to be taken in by "out-of-the-blue" offers of a prize in a competition or lottery which they had not entered.

He said his answer to a request to send money to "release" a prize would be to tell the caller to take that sum off the "prize" before sending it to him.

"Never, ever send off money to release a so-called larger prize that you have won," he said.

The callers were often from countries such as Canada and Australia, which were outside the European Union, which made their activities difficult to police, added Mr Thomas.

Last year, trading standards warned that the scams were being particularly directed towards elderly people.

l POLICE are appealing for licensees to be on their guard for a possible scam that has occurred at several locations across Cumbria. Licensees are contacted over the telephone by people who claim that they know them and who then ask to be loaned large sums of money, which they promise to repay. In several incidents, money has never been repaid to the lender and the caller has never been traced.

See Letters in Friday's Westmorland Gazette for more.