..................Beware the 'free' beauty creams that really cost you £175:

Beryl Brown ordered 'free' beauty samples and paid for postage
Two weeks later, firm took nearly £175 from her bank account
Evidence suggests firms target elderly women with beauty 'off

Beryl Brown had only gone on to the internet to check out the latest news headlines. After a few clicks, she suddenly found herself on a website she didn't recognise. On it was an advert for two free samples of anti-ageing face cream. One was a 15ml pot of Clearly Young Serum and the other a 30ml pot of Youthful Cream. She could get free samples of both just for the cost of postage and packaging - £8.92. 'I've never done this sort of thing before but it seemed like such a small amount of money I thought "where's the harm?"' says Beryl, a 73-year-old retired housing association manager. The face creams arrived in a clear little bag with no paperwork - and Beryl didn't like them. They were too gloopy and didn't spread very easily. She thought nothing more of it, until two weeks later her bank statement arrived and she discovered that she had made two further payments to the face cream company Derma Hydrate for £86.69 and £87.63.

Beryl had been trapped by a scam which snares thousands of women, mainly elderly, every single year. By handing over her debit card details, she had allowed the face cream firm access to her bank account to repeatedly take sums of money. Beryl says: 'I nearly had a heart attack - I hadn't agreed to pay anything like that, it only ever mentioned small postage costs. There was no receipt or anything with the samples and I didn't ever receive anything else. 'I know I'm not that good on the computer but I'm not an idiot. I was so embarrassed I just told my bank I'd lost my card and put off telling my husband for as long as I could.' Beryl tried to get hold of Derma Hydrate to ask for a refund but despite writing three times she got no reply. She was scammed because she had unwittingly signed up for a continuous payment authority.....Read more here