The Chancellor yesterday pledged to crack down on telephone fraud after the Mail exposed a fake taxman scam targeting 10,000 Britons a day. Philip Hammond said that no one should have to endure such ‘fear and intimidation’ in their own home. Pauline Howe, 64, was targeted after the death of her mother, when she was at her most vulnerable – and was scammed out of almost £19,000 while Martina Zvirinska, 29, lost almost £2,000 after being targeted by the 'vile' scammers last week. Miss Zvirinska, 29, who runs her own personal training business, said she was reduced to tears on the phone after being threatened with immediate arrest if she refused to pay what they were asking for. We had revealed how criminals posing as HMRC officials select victims from the BT online phone directory and threaten them with jail unless they repay non-existent tax debts. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is seen outside Downing Street ahead of a Brexit vote in London Mr Hammond tweeted a copy of yesterday’s Mail front page about the swindlers, who pocket £1million a year from UK residents while operating from Ahmedabad in India. And he promised to do more to stop the scammers using special software to buy British phone numbers – and even copying the HMRC phone number – to make their fraud appear genuine. Mr Hammond said the Government planned to remove phone lines used in scams as soon as possible, with 450 numbers already closed down and more to come. Mel Stride, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, also pledged to bring fraudsters to justice wherever they operate. He said: ‘These scammers think they can get away with it because they are calling from overseas. But they should think again: my message to them is that wherever you are, we will find you and put an end to your grubby schemes.’ Grab from undercover footage from an Indian call centre where scammers posing as HMRC officials terrorise thousands of Britons a day by claiming they are being prosecuted for non-payment of tax However, the pledge got off to a slow start after it emerged that UK police were yet to contact officers in Ahmedabad about the HMRC fraud gang. Police in the city have started an investigation – but only after the Mail contacted them directly ahead of publication with a dossier of details about the scammers. Undercover Mail reporters infiltrated the 18-strong gang at its fake call centre in Ahmedabad. The fraudsters, who boasted they did not fear being tracked down by British authorities, select victims at random from the online BT phone directory. Following a script, they warn about impending court proceedings for unpaid tax and demand immediate payment. Targets are told they face arrest and imprisonment if they do not pay immediately. HMRC received 60,000 reports of landline repayment fraud cases in the six months to January – 360 per cent up on the previous half-year. However, not all the victims will have come forward. More than one in ten frauds reported in the UK involves Indian call centres and over half originate abroad, according to Action Fraud, the national fraud and cyber reporting centre. Former Met Police fraud investigator James Mills said: ‘Britons are sitting ducks for foreign-based fraudsters. It’s hard work and very time-consuming to investigate scam call centres overseas which are hard to trace. ‘There’s a lot of bureaucracy to get access to these places and there isn’t the appetite or the resource to do it. Sadly, saying the money has gone overseas is often used as an excuse for closing a fraud inquiry. ‘For fraudsters it’s a dream. The rewards are very high and risks are very low.’ Mr Mills, who now runs his own fraud investigation company Requite Solutions, said: ‘It’s not treated as a priority, despite the huge number of victims. Just because it’s hard to do doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. It can be done if there’s enough effort.’ Gareth Shaw of Which? said: ‘Our analysis shows more than nine in ten cases reported to Action Fraud currently go unsolved.’ An HMRC spokesman said last night: ‘[We] will only ever call you asking for payment on a debt that you are already aware of, either having received a letter about it, or after you’ve told us you owe some tax.’ So vulnerable after my mother's death, that I let scammers con me out of £19,000 By Samantha Partington A school librarian lost almost £19,000 to call centre scammers after being kept on the phone for five hours and repeatedly threatened with arrest. Pauline Howe, 64, was targeted after the death of her mother, when she was at her most vulnerable – and much of the money stolen was from her inheritance. Her nightmare began in October last year when she received a voice message from a woman calling herself Claire Williams – who claimed to be from HMRC – saying it was urgent that she call the 0203 number back. Mrs Howe immediately returned the call and spoke to a man, Michael Carter, who said HMRC had noticed a discrepancy of £5,000 on her account. He claimed she had violated HMRC’s code, caused wilful misrepresentation, theft by deception, tax fraud and tax evasion. He also said they had frozen her driving licence, passport and national insurance number and had a warrant out for her arrest. Pauline Howe, 64, was targeted after the death of her mother, when she was at her most vulnerable - losing £19,000 She was told the breach had occurred between 2012 and 2016, but that if she paid the debt off immediately, nothing would happen to her. Mrs Howe, who has been completing an online tax return since 2010 for a property that she rents, feared she had submitted her return incorrectly. She said she would have to do it when she finished work and called the real HMRC on her landline when she returned home that afternoon at around 3.30pm. She was kept on hold and, while on the line, her mobile rang. Unbeknown to her, it was the fraudsters calling. She hung up on the real HMRC, and took the call on her mobile. It was ‘Michael Carter’ on the line. Mrs Howe said: ‘He could tell I was anxious and he spoke reassuringly to me and said: “Don’t worry it will be okay.” He was very compassionate and whenever I had a question he would say: “You don’t need to worry about that.”’ She added: ‘I was told to go to the HMRC website on my laptop. They guided me through several pages on HMRC’s website, seeming really knowledgeable, and took me to a page that had a box in it which said ‘enter reference’. ‘They said that once I had paid, I would be given a reference and that would allow me to make an appointment with my local HMRC office.’ The fraudster told Mrs Howe to go to her online banking page and gave her a sort code and account number for a Prepaid Financial Services account into which she was told to transfer £1,900. She was told to put her own name into the payee box in capitals and said: ‘I felt secure knowing I was paying myself.’ The money left her account, but the fraudster insisted he hadn’t received it. She sent the transfer again, and was met with the same response. When she argued with him that the transfer was working he replied: ‘You are forgetting we have a warrant out for your arrest.’ She made five transfers totalling £9,981 from her Barclays account before the fraudster recommended she try another account reminding her: ‘You’ve committed fraud’. Mrs Howe began transferring money from her First Direct account. The fraudster also asked her if there was anyone else she could ask for money, and she named her ex-husband. She was told to call him on the landline while they were on the phone but not to say what the money was for. She called, but explained to him that the money was for HMRC who were going to arrest her. Her ex-husband told her to hang up but, in her confusion, she hung up on him. The fraudster said: ‘Do you realise you’ve breached security. We told you not to tell him.’ Her ex-husband finally came around and ended the call at about 8pm, by which time she has lost £18,779. While the transfers were being made, both banks sent Mrs Howe messages querying the payments, but she authorised them to go through. She said: ‘They caught me at a really vulnerable time. My mum would have been 90 the day before they called. We had booked a family holiday because we didn’t want to be at home for Christmas after mum’s death and, when they said they would stop my passport, I thought this would ruin our chances of getting away.’ Much of the money that was transferred was from the sale of her mother’s house which she was planning to move into a savings account. First Direct initially said they would not refund the money because she had authorised the payment. But after being contacted by the Mail, the bank reviewed their investigation and have decided they did not act quickly enough in contacting the beneficiary bank. They have returned the whole amount of £8,798. A Barclays spokesman said: ‘This scam is a tragic case of theft by a fraudster pretending to be acting on behalf of HMRC. Once Mrs Howe contacted us to report this scam, we acted quickly to contact the third party bank involved and recover the funds – however they confirmed that the accounts had been emptied.’ 'They are brutal, cunning and clever,' says businesswoman, 29, who lost almost £2000 By Tom Kelly Martina Zvirinska lost almost £2,000 after being targeted by ‘vile’ scammers last week. The young businesswoman, pictured, was just one of thousands of British people targeted every day by con artists claiming to be HMRC officials. Miss Zvirinska, 29, who runs her own personal training business, said she was reduced to tears on the phone after being threatened with immediate arrest if she refused to pay what they were asking for. She said: ‘The intimidation was brutal. They are so cunning and clever. I’m a switched-on girl, I own my own business and I still paid. The way they speak to you is unreal. I was relentlessly threatened and manipulated. But I genuinely believed I was on the phone with a real officer or administrator from the Government.’ Miss Zvirinska, 29, who runs her own personal training business, said: ‘The intimidation was brutal. They are so cunning and clever' She added: ‘They told me if I didn’t pay now I’d face £79,000 in court fees.’ She said a major problem was the way they contacted from a genuine HMRC number which they made her check on the website. ‘After that I thought it had to be real. How else could they have that number? It still makes no sense to me. I was brought up to respect authority. I always pay my taxes, but of course you have this fear that there was a miscalculation. I just wanted to pay what I owed to avoid any trouble.’ She made an initial payment of £1,983 but, when the fraudsters demanded she make more payments, she spoke to an accountant friend who told her it must be a scam. But even after that the gang continued to hound her, demanding more cash. Miss Zvirinska said: ‘They kept calling. They wanted to squeeze every penny out of me. I believe 100 per cent the authorities must do more to tackle these criminals. I also want as many people to know what these scammers are up to so hopefully others don’t fall for it.’ Scammers beware: We'll find you, says Treasury financial secretary Like many Mail readers, I was horrified to watch a video of a man smirking as he threatened a vulnerable person with calling the police unless they paid thousands of pounds in a ludicrous scam. It makes my blood boil to see people conned out of their life savings by criminals posing as HMRC. People should be confident that the money they set aside for their taxes is going towards supporting our schools, hospitals and other vital public services. Mel Stride, Financial Secretary to the Treasury. 'It makes my blood boil to see people conned out of their life savings by criminals posing as HMRC,' he said As the Government minister in charge of HMRC, I’m determined to continue using every power in our arsenal to stop fraudsters in their tracks and keep your hard-earned money safe. These scammers think they can get away with it because they are calling from overseas. But they should think again: my message to them is that wherever you are, we will find you and put an end to your grubby schemes. HMRC has been actively working against scammers for years. Working with industry, we have already introduced ways of protecting people against scam texts and phishing emails and our experts now have their sights set on defeating phone scams, using cutting-edge technology to track down scammers and ensure they’re brought to justice. HMRC staff have contacts with law enforcement agencies around the world, meaning no one is beyond their reach. I’ve specifically asked them to look into the details presented by the Mail, and we will be pressing our counterparts abroad to take the very toughest response. Fighting scammers, fraudsters and money launderers is a relentless battle, but the good news is we’re making significant progress. Last year, we shut down 14,000 fake websites and disconnected 450 phone lines belonging to crooks. Over half of these types of scams are now shut down before potential victims can be duped. Our swift action against email and text phishing scams has meant a rising number of criminals are turning to high-pressure methods to reach their victims. Increasingly, our intelligence suggests fraudsters are aggressively cold-calling honest people on their home landlines and hassling them until they hand over money. This is totally unacceptable. While the Government will continue to hunt the fraudsters down, we can’t do it alone. Here are a few quick steps you can take to protect yourself and others from fraud. First, look out for the signs it’s a scam. Genuine organisations don’t call out of the blue. I can assure you that HMRC will only ever call you asking for payment of a debt if you have already received a letter about it or because you’ve told us you owe some tax, for example through your Self-Assessment return. Second, keep your details safe – don’t give out private information, don’t respond to aggressive callers and don’t download attachments or click on links in emails you weren’t expecting. Third, if you do receive a call to your landline out of the blue from someone claiming to be from HMRC who threatens legal action or prison if you don’t pay up, hang up and report it – it’s a hoax! These simple steps can make a big difference. If you are still in doubt or just not 100 per cent sure it’s HMRC, then hang up and call us back using the number on our website – and together we can stop the scammers in their tracks. All rights reserved for this news site dailymail and under his responsibility