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View Full Version : Over 3.2 million Brits Caught Out By E-Mail, Letter And Phone Scams



y2krog2000
04-10-2007, 03:34 PM
More than 3.2 million Britons have been caught out by conmen after being approached by email, letter or telephone, according to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

The most notorious scams centre on an advanced fee, where prizes or large sums of money are offered but to access them the victim must pay money up front.

Sometimes victims receive the promised cash in the form of a cheque and only discover it is fake after paying the fee by un-refundable bank transfer.

The total cost of such scams and swindles is more than ?3.5 billion every year.

The figures were revealed as the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) announced it has set its sights on the organised criminal gangs behind these frauds in the UK and abroad.

A large proportion of mass marketing fraud originates in English-speaking West African states and a recent month-long operation in Nigeria resulted in the seizure of 4,500 false documents including passports and identity cards.

Officials in the UK are working with other agencies in the US, Holland, Spain and Canada to tackle the menace.

Mass marketing fraud uses mass communication tools to reach large numbers of people cheaply and easily.

Paul Evans, director of intervention at Soca, said the UK has become a staging post for the illegal international trade.

He said police have closed thousands of British bank accounts linked to mass fraud and used by criminals to give their work legitimacy.

He said: "We are using new methods to tackle what is actually a very old fraud.

"You may take the view that there is 'one born every minute' but in some of the emails we have intercepted there are appalling examples of quite vicious exploitation, including threats of violence."

Mr Evans said many of the bank accounts, often opened with false or stolen identities, are also used to defraud the tax credit system.

Fake cheques, postal orders and bank drafts worth more than ?8 million have been seized and one High Street bank has already returned ?750,000 to the Government after acting on information from Soca.


Millions fall victim to conmen - Yahoo! News UK (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20071004/tuk-millions-fall-victim-to-conmen-dba1618_1.html)

kevdoc06
05-10-2007, 12:00 AM
lol just reminded me about an email i received a few months ago claiming to be from some African prince who has to flee his country because all his family were killed and they were looking for him, they said that the had 15million GBP and that he needed some1 in the UK who he could trust to transfer the money too until they arrived in the UK were i was promised 5%. all i had to do was give him my sort-code and account number(yeah right lol). it donned on me straight away that this was a scam. 1st of why would he trust me a complete stranger, second how did he get my email address to offer this to me. so i decided to play with him for a while so i replied saying that i really feel for him and that i am sorry to hear about his lose with regards to his family, i told him that i would be willing to help him and that it would be best if he gave me his bank details instead of me giving him mine. this went on for days and just as i thought he declined telling me that i must trust him and he kept reminding me about the 5% as if that was going to drill it into me. so i then declined telling him that if he wanted me to do this favour for him he must trust me. lol i received 5 emails that same day begging me to help him that his live was in great danger and i couldn't believe that he thought he had me. sadly there are allot of people who do get caught out on this one, but as the old saying goes- if it sounds to good to be true then it probably is.