A WATER company has launched its annual campaign against bogus callers - by showing how easy it is to be conned.Entertainer and pickpocket Ray Cooper is touring shopping centres with Anglian Water in a bid to drive the point home that customers should not take everyone at face value.

A WATER company has launched its annual campaign against bogus callers - by showing how easy it is to be conned.

Entertainer and pickpocket Ray Cooper is touring shopping centres with Anglian Water in a bid to drive the point home that customers should not take everyone at face value.

He was mingling with members of the public at the water company's bogus caller stand in the Tower Ramparts shopping centre, in Ipswich, yesterday .

But instead of stripping them of their valuables, he made sure they left with more than they came with, including leaflets on how to avoid distraction burglaries.

Sara Rowland, from Anglian Water, said: “We are very concerned that criminals often pretend to be 'water board' officials to gain entry into people's homes.

“To stop the elderly and vulnerable being conned out of their possessions, we hope that customers learn how to identify genuine callers at their door and keep the fake ones outside.”

David Dyble, a Suffolk police community safety officer and chair of Suffolk Safe and Sound - a partnership of agencies in the county that aims to make people safe and confident in their own homes - said: “Anglian Water has been represented on the Safe and Sound Group in Suffolk for some time now and we are delighted that we can work in partnership with them on this innovative way of getting our crime reduction messages to the public.”

The campaign will go to Lowestoft's Britten shopping centre today between 10am and 2pm and then on to the Cornhill shopping centre in Bury St Edmunds between 10am and 2pm on Wednesday.