This did brighten up my day. Peter McAfee sent me an email from his Spar, south Gloucestershire: “I had a call early this afternoon (he asked for the subpostmaster) from a very plausible guy calling himself Dave Bradley and claiming to be from our Police Community Support Team. Great long spiel about helping local youths, supporting local sports teams through their Watchdog magazine which is freely distributed to households in the area etc (you know the line). Went on for about five minutes, circling the point. I had a little chat with him, asking which clubs they supported - he couldn’t name any but had a list somewhere - and so on.

“When I asked where he was based he hung up, which I felt was rather rude considering we were getting along so well - his call had taken 43 minutes at this point as I had to keep stopping to serve customers, real and imaginary.”

And he concludes: “I just thought you might like to remind your readers that this scam is alive and well - ‘tis the Season to be Scammed, after all!”

The only thing I can add to that is when isn’t it the season?

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