Reports of frauds, deceptions and scams keep appearing, weekly even daily, on
major news channels and newspapers. Some of these frauds seem just too big and remote to be of immediate, direct relevance to our daily lives. But, we will eventually pay for the consequences and damages, in taxes, costs of goods and services, regulations, copy-cats etc.

I hope we can collect, in one thread, frauds and scams, reported or heard. We must become more aware and more educated to guard against frauds and scams
which impact upon the health, well being, and wealth of ourselves and our families.

Take the quiz. Are you a scambuster or will you be scam-busted?

To cut a long story short - Several years ago I lost a large sum of money(jointly with 2 friends 450.000) because a solicitor (sole practitioner) lied to my solicitor, having given him an undertaking. CPS would not prosecute because it was an ongoing case with connections in America, SFO were willing to testify if I took out a civil action against him ( to initiate action needed 50,000), Law society struck him off giving him 28 days to pass his clients on to another firm,Law Society compensation fund would not compensate us one penny because he was a sole practitioner.
I understand he was instrumental in laudering over 1,500,000. and he got clean away (except for being struck off)
Since this time I believe the rules have changed regards how solicitors practice but I am always wary when transfering sums of money through solicitors -I thought undertakings between solicitors were supposed to be reliable.

crockham :-((( Would you get into trouble if you publicise his name?

I don`t see why as the Law Soc. striking off would presumably be publicly listed.
Bran Lindsay Thomas formerly with an office in Wimbledon and I believe still living in Surrey

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6017250,00.html

22 held in major VAT fraud probe
Press Association
Tuesday August 15, 2006 9:08 PM

Twenty-two people have been arrested as part of a major investigation into a suspected VAT fraud worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Police and customs officers swooped at addresses in London, Manchester and Glasgow in the early hours.

More than 60 search warrants were executed during the operation, which is the biggest ever undertaken by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

About 400 HMRC criminal investigators are being supported by 100 officers from Strathclyde, Greater Manchester and the Metropolitan Police in the inquiry.

Gordon Miller, deputy director, HMRC Investigation, said: "Organised criminals are attacking the tax system, with the aim of stealing huge amounts of revenue. The scale of the problem across Europe is unprecedented, and HMRC has significantly strengthened its response to this serious fraud.

"The operation, the biggest ever undertaken by HMRC, is part of a large-scale, international criminal investigation into frauds that may run to hundreds of millions of pounds."

Police made 15 of the detentions in the Glasgow area, five in the Manchester area and two in London. The investigation is focused on a highly sophisticated scam known as "carousel" fraud. It involves importing small high-value goods such as mobile phones free of VAT from EU countries, then selling them with 17.5% tax added in the UK.

Instead of handing the VAT to the Government, the importing company, run by criminals, is hastily shut down and they pocket the cash. This loss of tax is often compounded when the new owners of the goods export them again and can legally reclaim VAT they paid.

Goods go round in a "carousel" via bogus supply chains within and beyond the EU as they are imported and exported again and again. Mr Miller added: "We are committed to tackling carousel fraud and to showing the criminals behind it, wherever they operate in the world, that there are no safe havens."

Carousel fraud is estimated to have cost the UK Exchequer up to 1.9 billion in stolen VAT revenues between 2004 and 2005.

Travel agents warn of holiday Web scam

" LONDON (Reuters) - Travel agents warned holidaymakers on Friday to be careful about booking trips online after an Internet scam was uncovered that has left nearly 3,000 people out of pocket.

A number of fake holiday Web sites, thought to be operated by the same individuals, have been set up and then quickly closed once people have been conned into paying for non-existent holidays, the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) said.

"We understand there are six or seven Web site names that have been defrauding people," said ABTA's Dee Byrne.

She said about 3,000 people have been hit by the con.

"Unfortunately many will have lost their money unless they paid by credit card, in which case they should be able to recoup their losses," she added.

The Metropolitan Police, the Fraud Squad and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) are all investigating the scam which is thought to have netted hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Byrne said ABTA's advice is to check its own Web site or that of other affiliated organisations like ATOL - (Air Travel Organisers' Licensing) to make sure their holiday firm is bona fide.

"We are saying 'just be careful about booking holidays over the Internet'. Obviously there are a lot of good companies that are perfectly OK, but people need to check," she said.

Byrne said people should be wary of too readily accepting an offer if it looks too good to be true and should instead spend sometime making simple checks on the credentials of the holiday firm."

Cornhill Insurance callback scam 01454 201129

Here's a cheeky little number that someone at Cornhill Insurance dreamed up and was probably paid very well for:

Your home phone rings and you answer it. But there's nobody on the line.
You do 1471 and get the above number. Naturally you ring straight back to find out who wants you etc.

Surprise, surprise. It's a recorded announcement from Cornhill stating that they've tried to contact you re an insurance quote.

I don't know what the rest of the message says as I hung up.

This just sounds like what happens in a telemarketing centre. The computers are programmed to dial the next few calls ahead to keep the throughput up, and when you answer the call is put through to an available agent. If there is no available agent, you will hear nothing on the line. Ofcom recently made these companies provide a calling number and limit the percentage of these failed calls to a certain amount. The number 01454 of course is just a normal geographic number, they are not making any money from you.

Watch out for a bogus BT call

"Con artists have come up with a new scam for getting bank account details from the unsuspecting public.

Beds Police say householders have been conned into giving bank details to someone pretending to be from British Telecom.

Victims have been phoned at home and told they owe BT a small amount of money which, unless it is paid immediately, will lead to their phone being cut off.

In spite of arguing with "BT" for several minutes, the latest victim was eventually persuaded by the caller to use her debit card over the phone to "pay" the 14 he claimed she owed.

As she normally pays her bill by direct debit, she then called BT's complaints department about the mix-up and was told they had not in fact contacted her at all.

They also advised her to contact her bank when she subsequently did this she found that 1,932 had been removed from her account.

Other victims have lost amounts ranging between 30 and 2,173, where their account details have subsequently been used for purchases.

Victims of the scam say the caller is very plausible and even gets a "manager" to call back later in the day to confirm that the payment has gone through and the bill settled.

Police are warning the public never to give personal details, especially bank details, to unexpected telephone callers even if they seem plausible and contact the company yourself to discuss the matter.

The same goes for internet banking. Emails seeming to be from a bank requesting security details are always an attempt by fraudsters to steal money and should be ignored."

What politicians etc don't realise, don't care or even not in their interest to stop is that frauds and scams are clear, serious and present danger to the UK. 7/7 is trivial by comparison.

New data theft scandal rocks subcontinent's call centres

" Conal Walsh
Sunday September 3, 2006
The Observer

Leading British and American companies face being dragged into an emerging fraud scandal at a call centre company in India.

V-Angels, a Delhi-based outsourcing company that handles customer inquiries for telecoms firms in the West, has reported a number of employees to the police for allegedly stealing highly confidential customer data.

Som Mandal, V-Angels' lawyer, confirmed that the firm had made a police complaint. He declined to identify V-Angels' clients, citing commercial confidentiality, but confirmed that they include 'half a dozen blue chip companies in Britain and the US'.

BT, Cable & Wireless and Vodafone all have substantial outsourcing operations in India but each denied this weekend that it had any contracts with V-Angels.

Although nobody has yet been found guilty of wrongdoing, the affair will raise fears about cyber crime and data protection in India.

Earlier this summer a worker at HSBC's data processing centre in Bangalore was charged with using British customers' personal details to raid their online accounts. Last year staff at another call centre were accused of stealing thousands of dollars from Citibank customers.

Numerous banks and utility companies have moved their call centres to India, where labour costs are cheaper. The trend has been criticised by the Amicus union and some customers who have complained about poor service."

Lloyds manager jailed over fraudulent bank loans plot

"A former Lloyds TSB manager has been jailed for two years and three months for passing customers' personal details to criminal gangs who then used the information to set up fraudulent bank accounts and obtain loans.

Seevaratnam Sivathasan, who was an assistant manager at a Lloyds branch in Putney, west London, had already pleaded guilty to 18 counts of corruption and three of theft against the bank's customers.

Passing sentence at Croydon Crown Court yesterday, Allen Gore QC told Sivathasan that the jail term reflected the fact that he had "grossly abused" the trust of Lloyds and its customers.

The Sivathasan case is the latest to be brought in a two-year investigation by the City of London Police fraud squad called Operation Horizon. It is looking into bank staff suspected of working with external gangs who have stolen collectively more than 3.5m from customers' accounts. To date more than 30 people have been arrested and over 30 search warrants executed.

..."

KAYAK,

Tonight I have received another call from Cornhill - 01454 201129.

This has to be a scam, if you ring the number, (non premium) you will hear their reocrded message.

Still not sure what the scam is Andy, Cornhill don't make any money from calls to that number, but if you listen to the message it says they tried to contact you regarding an insurance quote, may ring you again, but if you wish you can get back to them on an 0800 number. If it's a telephone dialling scam it's the first with an 0800 number :-)

Kayak,

Ok I have now had a call where they did not hang up!

I mentioned to the guy about the hang ups, and he said a lot of people complained about that!

My take on this now is the following;

They call you for only one or two rings, so most people won't be able to answer in time, cost to Cornhill = 0

You ring 1471 and hear the recorded message, you pay for the call at normal rates, cost to you = 5p maximum.

After hearing the message, you are interested and use the 0800 number, cost to Cornhill say 20p, but they have a prospect that has bothered to ring, so more likely they can turn that prospect into a customer!

Only my theory, but I accept it's not a scam, just an annoyance really.

Hmmm?

Scams steal 8.4bn from taxpayer

British taxpayers have lost a "catastrophic" 8.4bn to VAT fraudsters in 12 months, according to the results of a report obtained by Panorama.

The figures claim that the UK lost five times more money to VAT cheats than any other European Union (EU) country between June 2005 and June 2006.

The estimates from a Belgian taskforce created to fight fraud are much higher than the last published UK estimates.

Britain said it did not recognise the figures in the Belgian report.

"We cannot comment on the substance of this report and we do not recognise the figures that are set out for the UK," a Treasury spokesman said.

The government's own figures put VAT fraud losses at 1.9bn for 2004/05. Estimates for 2005/06 are not expected until the Chancellor's pre-Budget report is published later this year.

Huge losses

The higher 8bn Belgian estimate is based on figures from Eurocanet - a project sponsored by the European Commission using figures from the police and other groups.

"We estimate the loss to Britain to amount to 3.7bn euros with the 'Dubai Connection' adding some 8bn euros to this figure. It's clear there are very close commercial links between Britain and Dubai," said Herve Jamar, the Belgian Secretary of State responsible for VAT.

"Carousel fraud" involves the repeated import and export of small, high-value goods such as computer chips and mobile phones.

Under EU trading rules a UK company importing the goods does not have to pay VAT, instead it is charged to the British company that sells the goods on. The goods are then exported before being re-imported.

Each time the goods go round the carousel, the VAT that should be paid to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) goes missing.

'Dubai Connection'

The fraud first emerged in the mid-1990s but has exploded in the UK over the past year as criminals exploit what legal authorities call the "Dubai Connection".

This involves exporting the goods to Dubai before sending them back into Europe and round the carousel again.

By exporting the goods to Dubai, the fraudsters break the evidential chain making the fraud harder to detect.

According to Eurocanet, almost three quarters of the tax stolen by the fraudsters in the UK between June 2005 and June 2006 involved carousel frauds using the 'Dubai Connection'.

However, the Treasury has vowed to tackle the problem through a "reverse charge" scheme, which will come into force in December.

Under the new rules the last company to sell on goods like mobile phones - such as a retailer - will be responsible for paying the VAT.

"If it was implemented it would remove the mechanism for stealing VAT from about 95% of the goods traded in carousel frauds," Treasury Committee chairman John McFall told BBC News.

"The government, I believe, has got space in the Finance Bill to include that reverse charge."

A Treasury spokesman said the government was working hard to tackle the problem "through a combination of legislation, litigation and operational activity", with 1,400 HMRC officers dedicated to the task.

Recently, the London offices of Transworld Payment Solutions were raided in an international operation against an offshore bank involved in VAT fraud.

HMRC sources told the BBC that the move had led to a "significant" fall in the trade in fraud during July.

# This is a website update to a Panorama film first broadcast on July 16 2006 called Do You Want To Be A Millionaire which investigated "carousel fraud" and confronted one convicted criminal, "Riviera" Ray Woolley. He was hiding in Switzerland having escaped from prison by hailing a taxi.

--------------------------------------------------------

From Transworld Payment Solutions website http://www.twps.com/company.asp

"Established in 1989 as a consulting firm, TransWorld soon expanded its activities to include project management, software installation and transaction processing. Capitalizing on its experience working with key financial institutions and its close ties with solution providers and card associations, TransWorld is able to offer a full range of reliable solutions to see you through the pintail stages of analyses and conception to the resulting implementation and ongoing support."

Sometimes, it's the government doing the scamming!

I've just been reading how the US government trick people into voluntarily signing up for military service.

Firstly, they make a law requiring all the young males, at or about age 18, submit to a Registration Procedure.

When the government deem it necessary, all the registrants are drafted to attend a recruitment centre for an Induction Process.

At the end of the IP the draftees are instructed to 'stand on the line' and this is when they are tricked into joining up.

If you want to know HOW, click on the link.

NB.The link doesn't take you to a trick site or anything like that. But the web site at the end of the link does reveal what a 'con' the induction draft process actually is, sorry WAS.

Thanks to the internet, these days young US males won't be so easily manipulated into joining up, now that they can find out how to avoid being conned.

No dought some conflicks were neccesary but Is It not the same old story DP? the crooks at the top of society prosecute these wars and use the masses to fight and die in them.

The Data Theft Scandal

Channel 4 Thursday 5 October 2006, 9pm

In this edition of Dispatches, Sue Turton, senior reporter for Channel 4 News, investigates the call centre security failures which allow personal financial details to be stolen and illegally traded.

In a 12-month undercover investigation, Turton infiltrates criminal networks which trade British consumers' bank and other confidential information for huge profits in India, the world's new call centre capital.

Uncovering the methods used to thieve confidential data ranging from credit card numbers to passport details, Turton exposes the alarming security failures in a number of commercial call centres which allow detailed financial data on individuals to be gathered and sold on with ease. She discovers shocking data protection breaches and a new phenomenon known as 'data farming' the unauthorised 'harvesting' of personal data to be sold on or exchanged for profit.

This investigation also reveals the scale of some of the call centre scams as Turton is offered hundreds of thousands of 'hot leads', full banking and financial profiles, to purchase.

In the UK, Turton meets a former data thief and people who have fallen victim to this international trade. She also shows her undercover footage and findings to a UK data protection lawyer who is appalled, saying: 'You couldn't scare me more. This is as bad as it gets. This is evidence of serious criminal offences.'