DISTRACTION thieves, possibly pretending to be from France, stole a woman's bank card in a Malvern car park after following her from a supermarket.

The incident happened between 2pm and 2.40pm on Sunday, October 18, and started in the Lidl supermarket in Malvern Link when the victim has been shopping.

As she was paying by debit card at the checkout, she noticed a woman standing close behind her, about a foot away, and she tried to cover up her PIN number while she was entering it.

After leaving Lidl, the victim drove to the Victoria Road car park and put some bottles in the bottle bank there, and then returned to her car.

A long light-coloured car has stopped on her off-side and the female passenger got out, approached the victim asking for directions on a sat nav to the hospital.

The victim has opened her car window to speak to the woman, who said she was from Paris and spoke in broken English.

She returned to her car to get a map and then asked the victim to show her on the map where they were.

The man driving the car also got out, went to the victim's passenger side, opened the door, and perched on the front passenger seat., and leaned across towards the driver's seat as though he too was looking at the map. After finding Malvern on the map the two left and drove away.

The victim felt uncomfortable about what happened as her handbag had been on the passenger seat, and checked her card wallet discovering her Natwest debit card was missing. £240 has been taken from a cashpoint and a transaction made at Boots which were not made or authorised by the victim.

Anyone with information is urged to call 101, citing incident number 0403S 181015.