For more information and tickets for the Preview Evening on Monday 7th October go to http://www.devizesautumnfair.org.uk/

One of our fabulous Bobby Van home security operators, Mick Leighfield, came to the rescue of Mr L from Marlborough recently. On a trip into town his dog slipped out of the car door and he was unaware of this till he returned home. With no one manning the police station in Marlborough these days he was at a loss at what to do.

Luckily our hero, Mick, was flagged down by Mr L and was straight on the radio. Someone had found the runaway and had taken him to the vets. Mick drove Mr L to be reunited with the beloved rascal!

Nick and Annette Mason once again opened their gardens last weekend, 3rd and 4th August, to the public in aid of The Wiltshire Bobby Van Trust and Wiltshire Air Ambulance. Around 4,500 people of all ages came to see the gardens and some of Nick’s classic and super car collection and an incredible £40,000 was split between the two charities.

Jennie Shaw, Director of The Wiltshire Bobby Van Trust, said:

“I’d like to thank Nick and Annette Mason for opening their home so generously, the neighbouring landowners who allowed us to use their land as an exit and all of the volunteers who gave up their time to support us.

It was a marvellous weekend and we were amazed at how many people came. We usually have around 700 on each day but we had 2,000 on Saturday and 2,300 on Sunday.

We’d like to thank the wonderful people of Middlewick Lane and others living nearby for their patience. They helped us to raise more than £40,000 and we couldn’t have done it without them. It was a true example of a local community supporting two vital local charities.”

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A pop-up community policing shop is making a return to Swindon town centre.

It was originally in place in November 2018 and more than 1,100 people visited over Christmas.

The pop-up allows visitors to engage with local community policing team officers and get advice on crime prevention as well as a better understanding of policing work in their communities.

Swindon Community Policing Team South has been donated the retail space in the Brunel Shopping Centre with the idea supported by, in Swindon BID and the Bobby Van.

Team member PC Paul Bezzant said: “The shop was a big success and we’re really pleased that we have been donated this space over the summer so we can continue to engage with members of the public.

“Quite often we find that people prefer the face-to-face contact to raise any concerns or ask for any advice, so we would encourage people to pay us a visit in our new premises.”

Rob Faulkner, site facilities manager, said: “We are very proud to support this initiative and hope that this summers shop sees more visitors and allow Wiltshire Police to engage with the people.”

The pop-up launches on July 19 and will be open between 10am and 2pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays until August 10.

It is located opposite Sainsburys on the ground floor of the Brunel.

It has been brought to our attention that over the last few days many Buy With Confidence members have received spam email messages. These messages mention that the person sending the message knows they are a member of the scheme, and requests services related to a sector/category that the business is listed under on the Buy With Confidence website. Many of these come from ‘internationalpurchase.info’ and contain a very general request for a quotation with bad grammar.

These are likely to be phishing e-mails. It appears that these are attempts to take control of people’s email accounts. The people may be hoping to take over email accounts in order to launch an interception scam, where they watch the messages being sent and received, and wait until a business is about to request a large payment from a client. They then step in and send an email with their own bank details, requesting a transfer. The client unwittingly pays the scammer and both they and the business are left out of pocket. (Please note, we have no evidence that this is currently happening to any Buy With Confidence members, but it appears this may be what the scammers are attempting).

If you have received any of these suspicious emails, please delete them and do not click on any unusual links. Do not enter your email password into any site you are not 100% sure needs it – neither Dropbox nor any other site needs this in order to allow you to access files*. If you are worried you may have already inadvertently given your email password or other details to a scammer, change your password as soon as possible and contact your provider to ensure there are no other actions they advise for you to take.

While we apologise that this is happening, it is unfortunately very difficult when providing an online list to the public which includes contact details – including email addresses – to prevent scammers from harvesting those details. Due to the potentially high value of the con mentioned above, scammers are willing to put extra effort into personalising their ‘phishing’ attempts with mentions of Buy With Confidence and apparent familiarity with what your business does. This can make it appear more legitimate than typical spam.

We have previously put precautions in place to make it more difficult for scammers to harvest e-mail addresses from the Buy With Confidence website, but it is difficult to completely prevent without making it more difficult for genuine people, including the vulnerable people Buy With Confidence is often used by, from finding legitimate businesses via the Buy With Confidence website.

If you have any further concerns, please email admin@buywithconfidence.gov.uk.

Regards,

The Buy With Confidence Team

*The only exception would be a webmail portal you know is provided by your email provider, but even there, double-check you are entering your details into a genuine URL/web address (e.g. Hotmail.com) and not a similar, spoof address.

Will Todd is cycling in the Prudential Ride100 on Sunday 4th August to raise much needed funds. The route will take him from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park out through the Surrey Hills before heading back into London and finishing on The Mall. With a couple of steep hills thrown in he will need all the encouragement he can get to keep pedalling!! To sponsor him go to Will’s online fundraising page.