{"id":219221,"date":"2025-06-27T18:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T18:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/219221\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T18:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T18:02:11","slug":"solihull-council-fraud-probe-amid-fears-500-affected-as-bank-card-details-compromised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/219221\/","title":{"rendered":"Solihull Council fraud probe amid fears ‘500 affected as bank card details compromised’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Council officer apologises as police investigate potential card fraud and taxpayers urged to apply for new cards\"ConcernsConcerns of bank card fraud at Solihull Council(Image: Shannon Fagan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Police have launched a fraud probe at Solihull Council with potentially hundreds of taxpayers urged to change their bank card details.<\/p>\n

The investigation was confirmed by West Midlands Police while the authority said it had contacted those affected.<\/p>\n

The alarm was understood to have been raised over claims an agency worker had kept the card details of callers using a contact centre to pay for services.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Homeowner accused of taking councillors ‘for a ride’ can keep extension – despite fury of neighbours<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories from across <\/strong>Solihull<\/strong><\/a> including BHX, breaking news, politics and what’s on, sign up to our <\/strong>MySolihull<\/strong><\/a> newsletter<\/strong><\/p>\n

A source told the Local Democracy Reporting Service they had been advised to cancel their card and order a replacement. They said they were told up to 500 people could have been affected.<\/p>\n

They said: \u201cI assume it was when I phoned to pay for a green bin sticker as that’s the only time in recent years I’ve needed to call the council to pay for anything and I wasn’t able to do it online.”<\/p>\n

On social media, one potential victim shared a letter written by Solihull Council<\/a> officer Andrew Felton on June 20.<\/p>\n

The authority\u2019s director or resources said: \u201cI am writing to you because of something that has happened this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn agency worker at the council who took payments over the phone was found to have retained card details of some residents who paid for council services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey then emailed these details to their personal email address.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as this was discovered we took immediate action and involved the police.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt present we do not know exactly how many people are affected so as a precaution I am writing to everyone who this individual dealt with.<\/p>\n

\"SolihullSolihull Council House(Image: Sam Greenway LDR)<\/p>\n

\u201cTransactions processed by other staff members are not affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know this may cause you to be concerned and I would like to apologise for what has happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur advice is you should contact your bank and let them know your card details may have been shared with a third party without your consent.\u201d<\/p>\n

A West Midlands Police spokesperson told the LDRS: \u201cWe have received a number of reports of fraud against people in Solihull.<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficers from our investigations department are looking into the reports and carrying out further enquiries.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who has had money fraudulently taken from them can get in touch via 101 or report to Action Fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Solihull <\/a>Council spokesperson said: “As soon as this issue was identified we referred it to the police.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also immediately notified all those that this individual dealt with. They were advised to contact their bank promptly and follow any recommended precautions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGiven this is an ongoing police investigation, we cannot comment further.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council officer apologises as police investigate potential card fraud and taxpayers urged to apply for new cardsConcerns of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,2671,8919,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-219221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-solihull","13":"tag-solihull-council","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114756645529688932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}