PEOPLE are being warned to stay on their guard against bogus callers after a number of incidents involving doorstep conmen.

Police are hunting tricksters posing as bailiffs and cold callers offering council tax refunds in exchange for bank details.

Fraudsters have posed as council officers in each incident.

North Dorset District Council spokesman Peter Hyde said people should stay alert. “There are some unpleasant conmen about at the moment and I ask for residents’ vigilance and co-operation,” said Mr Hyde.

“The council needs to reassure people that we never make personal calls to collect money. Any council employee will, when possible, make an appointment and always carry official identification,” he added.

The incidents began last Friday when two men claiming to be council bailiffs visited a woman in a village near Blandford. They told her she owed £1,000 in council tax arrears and drove her in a silver four-door saloon to a bank in Blandford.

Officers with the town’s Safer Neighbourhood Team said the men returned in the same car on Tuesday but were sent away by their victim.

Police are hunting two men in connection with the incidents. The driver is described as clean shaven, about five feet six inches tall, with short, light brown hair, and a dark jacket. His accomplice is thought to be clean shaven and aged in his mid 30s.

The following day a man offering a council tax rebate of more than £1,000 from the district council phoned an elderly woman in Sturminster Newton.

PC Julie Hankin said the woman had hung up before giving her bank details and sent out a warning to local people on the Ringmaster alert system.

“Any genuine agency with a real reason to contact you will do so by post and will send a cheque. They will not need your bank details,” said PC Hankin.

A third woman in North Dorset was asked for cash by conmen posing as officers from the district council’s planning department.