A victim of a new scam involving television licences has spoken of her horror at being caught out by fraudsters.

The new mum from Helston, who asked not to be named, agreed to speak to the Packet as a warning to others, saying she felt "so annoyed" with herself.

She had received an email saying her TV licence needed renewing, with a link that appeared to go to the licensing website. It even displayed the same information when compared to the actual website entered independently through a search engine.

Despite checking her account and seeing that a payment had only just gone out, she assumed the licence must have needed renewing the following month.

"Even thought I knew it had been paid, I still stupidly did it," she said.

"I didn't think any more of that until a week later I had a phone call from somebody saying they were from Nationwide. They said they wanted me to confirm some recent transactions on my account, to check if it was fraud."

The man asked if she had clicked on any links, including a TV licence one, and then listed three different payments, all of which the woman said she did not make. He said he would sent a code to her phone that he would need her to read back to put a stop to the transactions, which she did.

He then said she needed her card reader, which did not have to be a Nationwide one and could be from any bank, but after the woman told him repeatedly that she did not have one at all he hung up.

It was at this point she called Nationwide directly and was told that the man she had been speaking to was actually the scammer, who was trying to take her money.

The code she had been sent actually allowed him to access her internet banking and he had already attempted a few transactions on websites, but only one for £100 had gone through, the rest failing due to him not having the card reader information. She has since had the £100 refunded by Nationwide.

The woman added that normally she never answers the phone to an unrecognised number, but it came up 'private' and she thought it might be her work or the doctor.

"I was just so annoyed with myself, because I've never fallen for it before," she said.

The one thing that, in hindsight, she believes she should have picked up on was that the man on the phone only called her by her first name.

"I think I just panicked," she said. "I think I've got baby brain!"