Hmmn, alarm-bells came up when I read this.
I read about this scam before. This basically seems to be a cut and paste British version (replaced $ with £, replaced Arizona with generic town etc)of an old email that has been doing the rounds since 2003.
The actual story is {bleep}, but the scam is true.
http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/creditcard.asp has all the info on how it works.
The general rule is do not give out information to people who phone you up. It is very rare that a legitmate company will phone you directly. If they do ask them for a reference no. and tell them you will phone the company back through a legitmate number.
