Shildon scam dentist cons County Durham people out of hundreds

Scammers, going under the name "The Dental Surgery in Shildon", have taken advantage of those living in the "dental deserts" of the North East. 

Using Facebook community groups in County Durham, The Dental Surgery promised that prepayment would secure customers an appointment, and automatically register them as an NHS patient. 

But the surgery does not exist, and the dentists listed on the website work at unrelated practices elsewhere in the UK. 

Trading Standards at Durham County Council have had five complaints about the supposed new venture. 

The team have warned the public to stay alert for the scam, and contact their bank if they have fallen for it. 

Jules Reet and Jacqui Nicholson were both caught out by fraudsters. 

Sophisticated scam 

Jules, 36, from Bishop Auckland, said it was a "sophisticated scam". 

She booked her and her partner in for a check ups with a dentist, at £26 each, after seeing an advert on Facebook. 

Jules, a retail worker, said: "The post was just getting shared and shared - and that instilled a bit of panic in me. I didn't want to miss out again. I've been checking the NHS website daily since our dentist shut down at the start of the year, and I've been getting nowhere.

"I'm quite clued up, I know to be careful of plenty of scams, but this was altogether more sophisticated.

"This is all because there's a massive shortage of dentists.

"They were using the address of an old dentist practice that closed down, so it came up as real on Google Maps, the website was really professional looking, it had a local number and photos of a recent renovation.

"After I paid, I had a confirmation email telling me when I'd booked in and with which dentist - but it turns out they stole the identity of real dentists. 

"I realised in a few minutes and froze all of my bank payments."

Though Jules has since been refunded by her bank, she is still concerned that many of her personal details are now in the hands of fraudsters. 

She added: "They have so much of my partner - and if I hadn't cancelled my card straight away, they had all of the details to make up payments.

"If other people went to bed after booking, or didn't realise it was a scam, all the money from their bank accounts could have been drained."

Four year wait for appointment

(Image: Jacqui Nicholson/PA Wire) Jacqui Nicholson, from Darlington, has been waiting for a check up for four years. 

Her diabetes means that she does not heal quickly, and can increase the likelihood of dental problems, but because of waitlists, her last appointment was before the pandemic. 

Like Jules, she had booked appointments at The Dental Surgery in Shildon, 

An office administrator at Darlington based charity A1 Steam, Jacqui still has not had her money back from her bank. 

Customer service has told her they will only be able to issue a refund once the date of the appointment has passed. 

Jacqui, 62, said: "Someone I knew shared that there were NHS places at the Dental Surgery, so I booked for both me and my husband.

"After such a long wait and such a struggle, I was really pleased that we got a place. I'd seen that Labour had put more funding into dentists, so I assumed that it was related to that. 

"It was only later on that I found out it was a scam. 

"Fraudsters must know that there's such a problem with getting appointments. They've cottoned on that it's something people really need, and where people will rush and go 'I need to get in before they're all booked.'"

The Northern Echo's Manifesto

In the run up to the election, The Northern Echo Manifesto lobbied the government to save dentistry in the North East, as waiting lists grow and services "hang by a thread".

Across our region, people have been left untreated and in pain, and in some horrifying cases, have resorted to pulling out their own teeth. 

Yesterday (November 5), Health Secretary Wes Streeting told Good Morning Britain: “I want to thank the British Dental Association for raising awareness of these kinds of scams, and we’ll be looking at what more we can do within the law to clamp down on that.

“They’ve done the public a real service this morning in giving some practical advice and help to avoid other people being taken in.

“But Eddie Crouch [Chair of the British Dental Association] is also right that we need to stop the rot in NHS dentistry which has been allowed to continue for far too long.

“Eddie was just in the Department this week, with the British Dental Association meeting the Minister for Care.

“Now the Chancellor has set the budget and the spending review totals for the next few years, we can negotiate the dentistry contract to deliver on our manifesto commitment of 700,000 more urgent dentistry appointments, but also to do the wider fundamental reform that NHS dentistry needs. So we will continue those negotiations and report back.”

Trading Standards on the case

The Trading Standards team at Durham County Council are now on the case of Shildon's fake dentist, after receiving five complaints from customers. 

Officers carried out various checks as soon as they became aware of the scam, including visiting the address given and finding it empty. They also checked with the General Dental Practice and NHS. A website claiming to be that of the new dentist has been taken down.

Ian Harrison, our business compliance manager, said: “We are aware that scams such as this are happening across the country. The scammers will have been aware of reports of people being unable to find NHS dentists and there being a shortage of appointments and will have seen this as an opportunity to exploit people and part them from their money.

“Not just this time of year but all year-round, scammers will try to prey on members of the public in order to try to get their hard-earned money. Scams come in many shapes and forms but usually follow similar formats. They often centre around a popular subject, product or service and create a time pressure to make people think they have to act quickly.

“We would ask that people think very carefully before disclosing private information or banking details to any company, or organisation, that they are not familiar with.”