Western Isles Citizens Advice Service (WICAS) is urging people to be more vigilant about scams.
An awareness campaign highlights people who live by themselves and don’t have much social contact can be vulnerable to scammers, through doorstep scams or online fraud.
It has been recently reported that the names and addresses of nearly 300,000 people across the UK are on lists which are being sold between criminals to use as targets for scams.
Nine in 10 people on these lists are unaware that they are being targeted it is believed.
Often, people who are socially isolated are not able to connect to the support or help to prevent this.
A WICAS spokesperson said: “We can all help people by talking about scams and reporting them when they happen, and also by passing on our information to those we think may be vulnerable.
“The one thing scammers don’t want us to do is talk to each other about them and how they operate. They rely on us keeping quiet.
“So we can all play our part in beating them by looking out for ourselves and each other.”
Talking about scams
22 July 2017