A Cheltenham travel agent owner has narrowly avoided being the victim of a fraudster after someone got hold of his bank details and forged his signature.
David Johns of Worlds Apart Travel contacted his bank last week to order new cheque books and was told that they had already been sent out to an address in London after receiving a change of address letter from him the previous day.
Yorkshire Bank’s Cheltenham branch managed to contact its printers and intercept the new cheque books but some bank statements had already been dispatched to the address in Old Kent Road, southeast London.
“We were lucky that we contacted the bank when we did. If it had been a few days later we would have been too late,” said Johns.
Realising the fraudster may try and arrange some TODs with his bank details, Johns quickly contacted the Association of Airline Consolidators which warned all its members to watch out for any TOD requests.
PC Frank Hannigan of Cheltenham Police said he had passed on the details of the address in London to the Metropolitan Police and was awaiting news.
“They are planning to visit the Old Kent Road address, which is normally a void address. Luckily the cheque books were never sent,” said PC Hannigan.