posted
Ruthless greed of the scammers Simon Moon, This is Money 1 February 2007
The ruthless greed of the people who operate scams on a massive scale was exposed today in a report by consumer watchdogs.
Every year criminals rake in £3.5bn from UK consumers who respond to false promises of easy money. This is equivalent to £70 stolen from every man and woman in Britain.
But behind this statistic lie many tragic stories of vulnerable and confused people ruined by heartless scammers who, once they have found a victim, prey on them time and time again until they have been bled dry.
The Office of Fair Trading, which published the report, says it frequently hears stories of people who have been robbed of their entire life savings after their names appeared on 'suckers lists' which are circulated among criminals.
In one case a woman wrote: 'My 82-year-old mother was receiving up to 70 letters a day. I realised last year that she had gone through her entire life savings and was running up considerable debts in the belief that she had won a lot of money.
'She had given out her personal details including her credit card number to a large number of companies and her credit card was hit repeatedly for small amounts of money which mounted up to £7,000 of debt in a very short space of time'
The writer arranged for her mother's mail to be redirected to her own address, but this failed to end the malicious feeding frenzy. She continued: 'This week our worst fears were realised when I found out that several of the companies had been contacting her by phone and persuading her to give them a neighbour's address to send correspondence to and to give them her new bank details in return for yet more overpriced goods in return for non-existent winning cheques.'
The letter ends: 'I am in despair of this constant menace and the more mentally confused she becomes the easier it is for these companies to persuade her into placing orders.'
An MP who contacted the OFT on behalf of a constituent wrote: 'The sheer volume of communications sent to one address beggars belief. The elderly gentleman was an ex-school head-teacher and clearly of the tradition that such letters should be answered. He spent over £4,000 in one month sending cheques which were demanded by scam letters.'
• MESSAGE BOARDS: Talk about scams
And in another heart-rending case, a daughter related how her elderly mother received around 10 letters every day and replied sending 'one cheque after another' for more than three years until all her money had gone and she was left in debt. She refused to accept that she was being tricked and would hide the letters and reply to them when she was alone.
The OFT says the personal impact on victims and their families is often devastating in terms of future peace of mind and health. 'Victims can be left with damaged self-esteem and a reduced sense of self-worth. Victims suffer stress, anxiety and depression. Lives can be ruined.'
Recent research commissioned by the OFT involving 11,200 interviews found that 1,388,000 UK consumers fall victim to prize draw and sweepstake scams, 400,000 to bogus holiday clubs, 330,000 to work at home scams, 200,000 to miracle health scams, 170,000 to clairvoyant and psychic scams, 110,000 to loan scams.
To fight this menace, the OFT has launched Scams Awareness Month. The watchdog says it has made it a priority to tackle mass-marketed scams and help reduce the number of victims.
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