An IT expert who confronted a suspected identity fraudster after filming him loitering outside his home is warning people to be on their guard.

Andrew Berry from Whitstable has spoken of the moment he came face-to-face with a man he believes fraudulently took out a three-year mobile phone contract worth £1,600 in his name.

He and his wife Barbara became suspicious after receiving emails from phone company O2, saying a new iPhone XS had been ordered and was to be delivered the next day.

Mr Berry, 53, said: “We were confused because we hadn’t ordered the phone. So we reported it to O2, who put it down as a fraud investigation and told us to look out for the delivery.”

The couple were working from their home in the Millstrood Road area of Whitstable the following day, when they received a text saying the courier would soon be arriving with the new phone - the latest model from Apple.

“We have a doorbell camera, which captures video when it detects movement near the front door,” Mr Berry explained. “We saw it turn on, so I went outside thinking it was the courier. But instead I saw this guy just wandering around.

“I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was looking for someone. It was a bit odd. Then he just walked off back up the street.

“It’s funny to think I may have been face-to-face with the scammer..." Mr Berry

“Looking back at the CCTV footage, it was the boldness of the guy - he walks up to the front door, pretending he’s coming out of it, and smokes his cigarette trying to look like he lives here.

“It’s funny to think I may have been face-to-face with the scammer.

“Then the courier arrived. I said I wanted to reject the delivery and he noted it as fraud. He said he’d seen the man watching him make other deliveries in the street.

“It appears to be quite an old-school kind of fraud - the courier said they are now told to only deliver packages to people who are actually inside the house.

“The worst thing about it is the inconvenience, and the time spent sorting it out - it’s a day of our lives gone.”

Mr Berry believes scammers obtained his personal information following an online data breach last year.

“All I can say is change your passwords to something nobody can guess or remember and don’t use the same one for everything,” he advises. “We’ve now changed all of ours.”

The incident has been reported to police organisation Action Fraud.

For more information about this type of fraud, including how to protect against it, click here.