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.

On Thursday 8th March 2007 at 9pm in the UK, Channel 4 will show a documentary called "The Great Global Warming Swindle".

TP

OK. A puzzle for you to solve.

An e-mail, just came in to me. Here's the nub of the puzzle: Is it legitimate?

And if not, why not?

Two reasons at least are required.

1st reason: When you click on the link on the e-mail, the web site the click takes you to, has a different URL address to the one shown on the e-mail. This should at least make you suspicious.

Note how you appear to actually be on a legitimate HSBC site. The site has other links and buttons.

Q. Are these other links and buttons legitimate? Is there anything that's suspicious?

(NB. I have edited up the e-mail below to make it work exactly as the e-mail works. The URL shown on the e-mail is the URL shown below. If you click on it, it will take you to the exact same website page just like a click on the e-mail would have done)

Please look for the Second reason. Here is the e-mail:


Dear Sir/Madam,

HSBC Bank Plc is hereby announcing the New Security Upgrade. We've upgraded our new SSL servers to serve our customers for a better and secure banking service,against any fraudulent activities.

Due to this recent upgrade, you are requested to update your account information by clicking the link below.

http://hsbc.co.uk./1/2/personal/current-accounts ont >

HSBC Bank Plc
Security Advisor
HSBC Bank PLC.

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

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
For assistance, log in to your HSBC Online Bank account and choose the "Help" link on any page.

HSBC Email ID # 1009

Doc I use their online banking and the format of the page that your link takes you to is out of date - it should look now like this -

http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/ebank/default.htm

Doc,

A major bank would never ask you for your account details by sending you an E mail. Delete it.

Ian

Skinny

10/10

You win the carrot. :-)

This is an absolutely excellent example of a phishing scam.

I trust you have reported it :-))

Reason No. 3

I don't bank with HSBC.

Insider trades 'rife' in UK bids

Insider trading on the London stock market remains as common as it was in 2000, according to the City watchdog.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said 23.7% of takeover announcements in 2005 were preceded by suspicious share price movements.

The figure is little changed from 24% in 2000, although it has fallen from a peak of 32.4% in 2004.

The FSA and the Takeover Panel launched a study last December into why news about four big bids had been leaked.

'Particular concern'

The figure in 2000 is significant because that shows how bad the problem was before the implementation of the Financial Services and Markets Act.

There was better news on the level of suspicious activity ahead of results announcements.

Only 2% of significant announcements were preceded by informed activity in 2004/5, compared with 11.1% in 2002/3.

"The figures for takeover announcements, although moving in the right direction, remain a cause for particular concern and there will be no let up in our efforts to tackle the problems in this area," said the FSA's Sally Dewar.

UK fraud costs top 20bn a year

"Fraud is costing the UK some 20bn a year - 330 for every person in the country, a police study warns.

The survey, commissioned by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) has added up published fraud figures across the UK's economy.

Including the cost of fighting fraud the baseline number is 13.9bn.

But the report's authors add on 6bn for under-reporting and tax evasion - and warn that even so, their numbers are a very conservative minimum."

...

Indeed, the public sector was the biggest victim according to the report's figures, suffering losses and costs of some 6.5bn in 2005 - much of it from so-called "carousel" VAT fraud.

...

But some observers were surprised that the baseline number was so low - barely changed from a 14bn estimate generated by the Home Office in 2000.

The report's authors acknowledge that their figures are "merely indicative", coming from sources which are "neither mutually exclusive nor collectively exhaustive".

According to Steven Philippsohn, head of fraud at London law firm PCB Litigation, the real problem with this kind of number is the vast amount of fraud that never makes it into the public eye.

...

WARNING!

Have you ever shopped online at the following website? Namely, "ShopNeo.com".

http://www.shopneo.co.uk/

Particularly during late February 2007, their customers card details from previous transactions (eg, November 2006) were being taken and used illegally.

Anyhow, if you ever used that site, it might be an idea to just check up on what credit card you used for your transaction and then have a look at your later statements to see if there is anything out of place. Perhaps you should also consider cancelling that particular card.

The sort of transactions that were mostly illegally done are on Internet gambling sites and are for quite serious amounts of dosh.

Oh, and in case you are wondering.... No. It hasn't happened to me.

http://www.coldcallingdatabase.com/

Cold calling database site! Click HERE

Thomas C. Durant

"Dr. Thomas Clark Durant, 18201885, was an American financier and railroad promoter. He was vice-president of the Union Pacific in 1869 when it met the Central Pacific railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah Territory. He was also a chief architect of what would become the Crit Mobilier scandal."

...

"Durant had a ruthless reputation for squeezing friend and foe for personal gain. The Pacific Railroad Act authorizing the government subsidies for building the railroad required that the Union Pacific not have concentrated ownership. Durant got around the restriction by persuading cohorts that if they put their names on the stock he would make the initial payment for the stock. Then he enforced his ownership and controlled almost half the Union Pacific stock.

At the same time Durant manipulated the stock market running up the value of his M&M stock by saying he was going to connect the Transcontinental Railroad to it while at the same time secretly buying competing rail line stock and then saying the Transcontinental Railroad was going to go to that line.

Since the government paid for each mile of track laid, Durant overrode his engineers and ordered extraneous track to be built in large oxbows so that in the first 2 1/2 years the Union Pacific did not go further than 40 miles from Omaha. Durant did not have to worry about government oversight because it was preoccupied with the Civil War. When the war ended in 1865 the Union Pacific made a mad dash and was to complete nearly two thirds of the transcontinental route."

"One of biggest coups was Credit Mobilier. The company was one of the first to take advantage of the new limited liability financial structures. Previously investors were responsible for the finances of a company if it had problems. Under limited liability the only responsibility was for money paid in. Credit Mobilier was created to actually build the track. Durant manipulated its structure so that he wound up in control of it and thus his own company Union Pacific was paying him via Credit Mobilier to build the railroad."

"Durant was to attempt to cover his tracks by having various politicians including future President James Garfield as limited stockholders."

...

People & Events: Thomas Clark Durant (1820-1885)

...

"Slippery Exit
The Doctor remained ever slippery. After the lines joined at Promontory Summit, Utah, Oliver and Oakes Ames prepared to oust Durant once and for all. Durant beat them to the punch, however, resigning his position, moving onto new railroad projects and new fields of plunder."

Food officials are investigating an alleged eggs mislabelling scam.

"As many as 500 million battery farmed eggs may have been sold at premium or free range prices over the last five years as part of the alleged con.

Government officials said the fraud may be ten times bigger than first thought when it emerged four months ago.

Enforcement officers are trying to unravel a complex supply network to find out who masterminded the operation.

..."

Another example why must less trust and more cynicisms are necessary and a good thing in our society ...

UK duo accused of insider trading

"US stock market regulators have accused a British couple of insider trading relating to the $45bn (22.9bn) takeover of energy firm TXU.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allege that UK residents Sunil and Seema Sehgal made $270,000 by illegal trading in TXU shares.

A US court has frozen the duo's assets and the SEC is seeking the return of the money and financial penalties.

The TXU deal was the largest private equity purchase in corporate history.

The Sehgals are the first people to be publicly identified as part of the SEC's case against alleged insider trading before the TXU deal.

The SEC alleges the Sehgals made "highly profitable and suspicious purchases" of options for TXU stock before its announcement on 26 February that it had agreed to be bought by a consortium including Texas Pacific and Goldman Sachs.

They did this, it is alleged, after being in possession of significant information about the transaction which was not available to the public.

..."

Wish FSA can be a much as 1/10th as effective as the SEC which probably only catches a tiny fraction of financial frauds and insider tradings ...

Travel agent jailed in 500m scam

"A travel agent has become the 11th person to be jailed in connection with a money laundering scam worth 500m.

Bradford Travel Centre owner Shahid Nazir Bhatti, 45, of Shipley Fields, admitted taking part in the fraud.

Bhatti was jailed for three years in the last of a series of court cases that could not be reported until restrictions were lifted on Tuesday.

He was the 11th person to be convicted for the scam, uncovered by revenue officers across West Yorkshire in 2001.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officials targeted a number of travel agents in the county they suspected had been using the "hawala" system of transferring cash abroad.

Illegal money

Hawala exchanges are an ancient form of money exchange, used in Asian countries, which bypass the ordinary financial regulatory system.

Investigators were alerted to the activities when financial institutions realised the scale of some of the transactions.

They carried out a series of raids in February 2001.

The fraud centred around travel agencies, including Bhatti's, which alone was believed to have been used to launder more than 42m of illegal money.

Also involved in the operation were Watan Travel, with branches in Bradford and Birmingham, and Ramzan Travel, based in Halifax.

A HRMC spokesman said that couriers working for criminal gangs would collect money from drug traffickers and dealers around the UK and would deliver it to other premises in Leeds for counting and sorting.

David Odd, HMRC head of investigation for Yorkshire, said: "Literally hundreds of thousands of pounds in 'dirty cash' was being ferried up the M1 on an almost daily basis.

"The money was then deposited into business and personal accounts at various banking outlets, converted into foreign currencies, then transferred to accounts in the United States, the United Arab Emirates and across Europe."

The judicial process was extended after several defendants took their cases to appeal at higher courts, leading to retrials.

Defendants jailed

Bhatti was originally jailed for 10 years. His conviction was then quashed on appeal and he was jailed for three years at Bradford Crown Court on Tuesday on his second conviction.

The others convicted of the fraud were:

*
Amer Ramzan, of Heath Lea, Halifax. Owner of Ramzan Travel. Initially jailed for 12 years. This conviction was quashed on appeal and he was later jailed for nine years on a second conviction.

*
Faisal Malik, of Thirlmere Close, Leeds. Jailed for 10 years.

*
Imran Syed, of Thirlmere Close, Leeds. Jailed for four years.

*
Shahel Gazi, of Cubitt Street, Kings Cross, London. Jailed for two-and-a-half years.

*
James Carr, of Halkyn Drive, Liverpool. Jailed for 10 years.

*
Claire O'Brien, of Heywood Rd, Manchester. Jailed for two-and-a-half years.

*
George William Cockerill, now deceased, of Tolmers Road, Cuffley, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. Jailed for three years.

*
Liaquat Ali, 44, of Woodlands Road, Sparkhill, Birmingham. Jailed for 12 years. This conviction was quashed on appeal but he was later jailed for 12 years after a second conviction.

*
Akhtar Hussain, 46, of Skipton Road, Keighley. Jailed for 12 years. This conviction was quashed on appeal but he was later jailed for 12 years on a second conviction.

*
Mohsan Khan, 48, of Lance Way, High Wycombe. Jailed for eight years. This conviction was quashed on appeal but he was later jailed for five years on a second conviction."

Motorists hit by card clone scam

"Thousands of motorists who use a bank card to buy petrol are thought to have lost millions of pounds in a scam allegedly linked to Tamil rebels.

It is believed cards are being skimmed at petrol stations, whereby the card details and pin numbers are retrieved and money withdrawn from the account.

About 200 of the UK's 9,500 petrol stations are thought to have been hit.

The Sri Lankan government has claimed its opponents, the Tamil Tigers, are behind the scam.

Police are investigating complaints made in Edinburgh, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, Peterborough, Nottingham, Leeds, Bristol and Hull.

...

Most of the UK's petrol stations are independently run which means they are susceptible to being infiltrated by organised crime.

...

The petrol industry accepts it is a problem.

..."

Viewers 'lose millions' to GMTV

"Callers to premium-rate phone competitions on the GMTV breakfast show have been defrauded out of millions of pounds, a BBC investigation has found.

Panorama found a company working for GMTV had been finalising shortlists of potential winners "long before" phone lines closed, for the past four years. "

GMTV has moved to suspend all phone-ins, but said it was confident it had not breached regulators' codes.

The phone operator, Opera Interactive Technology, denied any wrongdoing."

...

Panorama also alleged Opera sales director Mark Nuttall had discovered what was going on in 2003 and sent an e-mail to staff telling them to keep it secret from GMTV.

But Opera has denied any wrongdoing.
..."


Panorama: TV's Dirty Secrets can be seen on BBC One at 2030 BST on Monday 23 April


If true, then WHO in Opera Interactive Technology is/are responsible ???
Are past "winners" genuine callers ?

It reminded me of the cruise-ship episode in last year's Apprentice.

What I find odd is that Who Wants to be a Millionaire is escaping from all this challenge to the use of premium phone lines.

I read that most of its income does not come from selling the prog to the BBC, but from the charge made to callers, on premium lines, phoning and asking to be chosen to compete. I am sure they are never warned about what these calls cost.

Of course there is a problem with the celebrity shareholders like Tarrant having made mega-bucks from selling out their interests in the company that makes the prog. Maybe I should say a problem for the celebs and maybe this is why, what I think is a scandal, has never hit the headlines.

TP

Interesting sentence!

------

George William Cockerill, now deceased, of Tolmers Road, Cuffley, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. Jailed for three years.

I guess he's going to rot in jail !