A BOLTON man has raised the alarm about a credit card scam which has cost him and five of his friends £30 apiece -- and could hit the pockets of many more people throughout the town.

Harwood ambulance driver Colin Stott was left fuming when he discovered this week that £30 had been taken from his bank account for a BT Cellnet mobile phone top up... because he does not even own a mobile phone.

Mr Stott says five of his friends, including his mother, have suffered similar losses in recent weeks all with the same amounts being taken from their bank account for mobile phones. "If it has happened to five people I know all within a small area of Bolton then it could be happening to hundreds of people across the town," he said. "In fact it is probably going on across the whole country."

Mr Stott and his friends believe their credit card account numbers and details have been taken down by an unscrupulous shop worker when they have paid for something with their bank cards.

"I got on to my bank, Lloyds TSB, and they said they have had quite a large number of complaints about this sort of behaviour," he said. "The money always goes out of the account for mobile phone top ups because apparently they are untraceable.

"All a person needs to do is make a note of your account number and expiry date and quote these when they phone up for a mobile phone top up. Apparently £30 is the maximum for a top up so that is why this amount is removed."

Mr Stott said the bank believe shop or petrol station workers may be making a note of peoples' numbers and then selling the details on to others.

"If, for example, a worker clocks five or six numbers in a night and then sells them on for a fiver or a tenner a go they would be making quite a tidy sum," he said.

Mr Stott has now had his card confiscated by his bank - who are forced to class it as stolen in such circumstances - and has been told he has a six week wait for his money to be returned.

"I was quite angry about this because the money has been taken through no fault of mine," he said. "There is a fault in the whole system and it's not the amount but the principle of the thing that annoys me.

"There could be people out there who cannot afford to wait for six weeks for their £30 to be returned and I think people in Bolton need to be aware that this is going on."

He added: "The bank has advised me never to give my card details over the phone to anyone and to try not to use it for things like petrol which from now on I think I will have to do."

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said they took fraudulent misuse of credit cards very seriously.

"These are not victimless crimes and while the man will get his money back eventually somewhere along the line someone has to foot the bill," the spokesman said. "These people who have been affected did the right thing by contacting their banks but we would ask them to inform their local police station as well.

"These matters will be investigated and it is something we take seriously. This is highlighted by a recent case where two men received substantial prison sentences for credit card fraud in central Manchester."