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.

FYI

http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=10010921&sort=whole#10215057

Author: KonradMeier Number: 7917 of 7923
Subject: Re: Internationale Zurich Gruppe Date: 10/10/06 10:01
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****IMPORTANT INFORMATION-PLEASE READ****


I am posting this message in my capacity as in-house legal counsel of the Zurich Financial Services Group (Zurich). Zurich is a leading insurance-based financial services provider worldwide with its registered head-office in Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich has built up a substantial goodwill and reputation in the ZURICH name in the insurance and financial services market in Europe and throughout the world.

Please be informed that Internationale Zurich Gruppe (IZG) and First Zurich Group are in no way associated with Zurich. To our understanding, the above mentioned organizations are not authorized by the FSA (the UK Financial Services Authority) to provide financial services. In addition, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, Finansinspektionen, posted on its website the following warning regarding Internationale Zurich Gruppe:

http://www.fi.se/Templates/Page____6469.aspx

Zurich has informed the relevant authorities about their possibly illegal conduct. If you have been affected by activities of one of these organizations we recommend that you contact the Metropolitan Police at 'fraud.alert@met.police.uk', webpage www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/.

Thank you.

Konrad Meier
Group Legal Department
Zurich Financial Services
Zurich, Switzerland

Banks put client data in street

"The UK's information watchdog is to investigate claims that banks are leaving confidential information in rubbish bags outside branches.

BBC investigators found customer names, addresses and account details when rifling through discarded trash.

The team, from BBC One's Watchdog, say the information could be used by criminals to steal clients' identities.

The information commissioner, Richard Thomas, said he would look into the findings, the team said.

As part of the investigation, to be screened on Tuesday, researchers collected bags of unsecured rubbish left outside banks and building societies in five UK towns and cities.

Among their finds were details of a bank transfer for 500,000 left outside a Nottingham branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Credit cards cut into easily assembled pieces were recovered from outside a Barclays outlet in Bristol.

Other discoveries among the trash were customer names, phone numbers, sort codes and account numbers at a Halifax branch in Manchester.

And bank statement details were found outside the Scarborough Building Society in York.

Following the investigation, the information commissioner Richard Thomas is launching a probe, the programme says.

Watchdog editor Rob Unworthy said: "We are horrified at how easy it was to get hold of customers' personal details - and about what could have happened if that information had fallen into the wrong hands."

Separate findings show the ease with which identity thieves can operate.

Nearly half of household rubbish bins contain all the information a fraudster needs to steal a person's identity, a survey by document shredder manufacturer Fellowes found.

The results were published to mark the beginning of National Identity Fraud Prevention Week. "

Police arrest counterfeit gang

Police say they have broken up a gang responsible for more than a quarter of the counterfeit money seized in the UK.

Detectives from City of London Police - which led the operation - estimated that over the past four years the gang supplied about 10m in fake notes.

As well as 20 and 50 notes, the gang dealt in Scottish banknotes and Euros.

Four men and two women have been arrested after raids at two homes and a business in Essex; one man was held after a 45-minute car chase.

Officers have described it as the "most significant" operation in their history to detect counterfeiting.

When police arrived at one business address in Dagenham they found printing presses in operation.

...

It happened at Enron, it is happening now, and the tricks and practices will continue ...

"Ever since Lay hired Jeffrey Skilling back in the 1980s, Enron had had little in common with its staid, rival utilities. Lay had been one of the key men pressing for the deregulation of the power markets and once he had received his wish, it was his mission to exploit them to the full..."

"By inventing new markets and dominating them before regulators knew what was going on, the money continued to flood in..."

"Some of these scams were set up by Enron executives and their families, benefiting them to the tune of millions of dollars at the same time as they were making even more by selling Enron's inflated shares ..."

Scandal that destroyed faith in the market

Enron boss gets 24-year sentence

"The former chief executive of the US energy giant was convicted together with Enron's ex-chairman Kenneth Lay.

Mr Lay has since died and his convictions have been quashed.

This is because Mr Lay, who died of a heart attack in July, passed away before he was able to appeal against the verdict.

The scandal at the one-time energy giant left 21,000 people out of work, and shook corporate America, when the firm went bankrupt in 2001 with debts of $31.8bn (18bn).

..."

So, who are the main beneficiaries of the 18bn debt ???

Kenneth Lay: A fallen hero

" ... The holder of an economics degree and PhD ..."

" ... taught both micro- and macroeconomic theory as an assistant university professor ..."

" ... Working for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ... "

" ... lectured on government-business relations at George Washington University ..."

" ... His success at Enron earned him directorships elsewhere, and he had a place on several boards ... "

" ... In business circles he had undoubtedly made it - his success underlined by the fact that his golf partners during the 1990s regularly included President Bill Clinton. ..."

" ... a supporter of a large number of charities and a trustee of the First United Methodist Church. ..."

" ... serving on a host of impressive sounding committees, including the 1990 Houston Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations during which he played host to former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher. ..."


Never judge a man's integrity and honour by his academeic achievements, CV's, positions, titles, reputations, wealth, memberships of organisations and with whom he rubs shoulder and calls as his friends.

Profile: Jeffrey Skilling

"Bachelor of Science degree at Southern Methodist University."

"gaining an MBA at Harvard Business School"

"work for global consultancy McKinsey."

"spent five years in charge of a string of subsidiaries before his promotion to president and chief operating officer"

"a car he owned bore the licence plate "WLEC" - World's Leading Energy Company"

"during a routine conference call, he yelled an obscenity at a bank analyst who had the temerity to question the firm's balance sheet."

"convicted of a fraud which prosecutors say netted $180m"

"Skilling was found guilty on 19 counts of fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors for his part in the 2001 collapse of energy giant Enron."

Dirty little cleaner cost 250,000

"A former magistrate blew more than 250,000 paying a prostitute to clean his house in the nude

...

But, after spending 20,000 of his savings and 80,000 on credit cards on his bizarre fetish, the company secretary began stealing cash from his employer, a court heard.

He fiddled the books to pocket a further 164,000 he should have paid into his firm's accounts, even though his boss told him the business was in trouble.

...

The former JP, who had worked at Alec's Three-Piece Suite Warehouse in Great Lever, Manchester, for six years, began siphoning cash from the store in October 2004, Bolton Crown Court heard.

Yesterday, managing director Alec Bromleys, who has run the business for 26 years, said: 'Lee nearly ruined me I was completely oblivious.

I trusted him implicitly as my right-hand man.

'He was an ex-magistrate and came to me with glowing references.'
"



Worth repeating as a warning and reminders to all employers ...

"I was completely oblivious. I trusted him implicitly as my right-hand man. He was an ex-magistrate and came to me with glowing references."

Corrupt officers jailed for leaks

"Two former Nottinghamshire police officers have been jailed after pleading guilty to corruption charges.

Charles Fletcher, 25, and Phillip Parr, 40, admitted at Birmingham Crown Court to separately passing data on serious inquiries to suspected criminals.

...

Five men who admitted obtaining the information have been jailed for a total of 15 years.

Jason Grocock, 33, was convicted of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office and two further charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He was sentenced to four years.

David Barrett, 40, was convicted of two charges of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office and was sentenced to three years.

Darren Peters, 38, and Javade Rashid, 40, were convicted of the same charge and were sentenced to four years and to six months respectively.

The fifth man cannot be named for legal reasons.

..."

Call centres infiltrated by gangs

"One in 10 of Glasgow's financial call centres has been infiltrated by criminal gangs, police believe.

The scam works by planting staff inside offices or by forcing current employees to provide sensitive customer details.

The information is then used to steal identities and fraudulently set up accounts or transfer money.

The Customer Contact Association played down the extent of the problem but admitted it was a concern to those in the industry.

..."

Vetting needed to stop ID scams

"A technology security expert has warned that call centre staff can be working with key personal information after only a few days training.

It comes after the BBC's Newsnight Scotland revealed police concerns that criminals had infiltrated the industry.

Jamie Gallagher, from Netintelligence, called for greater efforts to vet employees and protect systems.

The Customer Contact Association said systems were available to vet staff and share information between operators.

Strathclyde Police said that up to one in 10 of the financial centres in Glasgow had been infiltrated by gangs.

..."

How about overseas call centers ???

A wonderful (?) thing has happened round here.
A charity (totally above board) sent leaflets round asking for jumble, old furniture etc for their cause.
They came round to the garages and houses and picked up the earmarked stuff for collection.
A few days later and peoples reporting thefts, garden mowers missing from garages etc. A couple of break ins.
All these houses were 'givers' to the charity. When questioned the charity had no knowledge of any wrongdoing but the 'collectors' were all work-in-the-community offenders working under the supervision of a probation officer.
They were casing the joints!

so in the last few posts we've discovered we can't trust the police, call centres, or charities. who's left to trust other than immediate family and close friends?

Supakat. My first wife ran off with my close friend!

Well, it turned out she was closer to him than me!

I do miss him.

Bolshi !! :-(((

On the other hand, you can now spend more time, efforts and goodwill on the deserving.

Axdpc. Ah! You mean the Dow. :-)

Bolshi.... so it seems we're down to excluding wives and close friends as well. Therefore I also wish to include mother-in-laws in the list of people not to be trusted.

Government 'failing' over fraud :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6091702.stm

perhaps some banks will start taking things more seriously now:
(Am not surprised that Halifax is meantioned in the BBC article):-

"Several leading banks may be facing unlimited fines over allegations that they dumped confidential customer account details in bin bags on streets."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6093600.stm

Legally neither frauds nor scams but ...

MP's court bid for answers fails

"The courts cannot force ministers to give proper answers to questions from MPs, a High Court judge has ruled.

The court heard Lib Dem MP John Hemming was concerned they could "duck, weave and not answer" queries, while the government did little to stop it.

Listing 12 ministerial responses he considered to be poor, he said a court needed to enforce proper answers.

But the judge refused his request for a judicial review, saying the ministerial code had to be enforced by Parliament.

'Flawed and evasive'

MPs can ask questions of ministers about policies, with replies usually received two weeks later, to allow detailed replies to be prepared.

Mr Hemming, MP for Birmingham Yardley, highlighted 12 of his queries on subjects ranging from overspending on NHS drugs, the financial position of millennium projects, gas imports, climate change and increases in council tax.

He said he received flawed, partial, evasive and sometimes misleading responses and argued the prime minister had failed to stop this.

Mr Hemming said that when he had complained about it in the Commons, the Speaker of the House of the Commons had said it was not a matter for him.

..."