CITY of York trading standards regularly receives complaints from people who have been tricked into parting with their money at home.

It is not only people cold calling at the door that cause problems, unscrupulous traders will use all means possible to persuade residents to hand over their money.

There have been a variety of complaints about cold phone calls recently.

Some residents have complained about phone calls from traders offering to do a survey on their home for some apparently "urgent" reason.

Although a survey may not be wanted, the caller insists on sending a representative round who "happens to be in the area".

Sometimes the representative will call to try to sell unwanted goods and services. Sometimes they do not turn up, but it leaves the person feeling uneasy about whether or not they are likely to receive an unwanted caller.

A relatively new technique is to leave a message on the victim's answer phone asking them to call a service department or something similar about their new purchase.

The message is deliberately vague to entice people to phone and find out what it is all about.

However, the return phone call will cost the caller a small fortune.

Some residents complain about being sent "too good to miss" prize draws and other competitions through the post. The recipient is asked to send off a sum of money - perhaps an administration fee - in return for a large reward.

The letters look professional and genuine enough. However, very rarely is the promise ever fulfilled.

Email is also an increasingly popular way of trying to ask people to part with their money.

Most common is phishing, whereby emails are sent purporting to be from recipients' banks or building societies and asking the recipients to send in their private account details.

Our banks and building societies never ask for security details in this way, but again the fake emails can look pretty convincing.

The best advice from trading standards is simply to ignore things that are received out of the blue. It is an old cliché in trading standards, but if things look too good to be true, it's usually because they are.

By registering with the telephone preference service and mail preference service you can cut down on a lot of unwanted contact. We still need to be wary of these unscrupulous techniques aimed at encouraging us to part with our money.

Finally, if you have sent off money and not received anything in return, trading standards would like to hear from you. Phone Consumer Direct on 08454 040506.

The call will be referred to the area's trading standards officers where necessary.