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Vote Leave fined £40,000 for spam text messaging

The Information Commissioner’s Office has fined Vote Leave Limited £40,000 for sending out thousands of unsolicited text messages during the 2016 EU referendum. Following an investigation by the ICO, discovered that the Vote Leave campaign sent 196,154 text messages promoting the Leave Campaign. The text messages contained a link to its website.

The ICO found that the Leave campaign claimed they had received people’s details Lawfully, but had actually deleted the evidence of consent after the referendum. They also deleted details of the phone numbers the messages were sent from, the number of messages sent, and the number of messages … Read more

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Scammer Steals $10,000 From Grandfather

A grandfather from Australia has been scammed out of $10,000 by a refined fraudster who knew all of his personal details.

The 77 year old retired grandfather, from Australia, was called on his landline by scammers claiming to be from his broadband provider. They told him he was due a payment of $300 in compensation for his service not working properly. The caller then proceeded to pass his call onto a female agent who claimed to work for the network and would process his $300 payment.

The scammer knew all of his personal details and was able to access his … Read more

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Cold-Calling Scammers Convicted

A cold-calling company based in Swansea has been caught on CCTV pressurising elderly victims into buying boilers that didn’t exist.

Renewable Energy Centre Ltd, offered victims a free boiler under what they said was a government scheme, all people had to do was pay a one-off upfront fee of either £299 or £399.

The company managed to con 1,200 people into paying this fee, but only three households ever acquired their new boilers. The three elderly victims who did receive their new boiler, were actually unknowingly signed up for monthly repayments lasting 12 months.

A four year investigation was carried … Read more

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Disgruntled Timeshare owner from U.S wants to warn others to stay away from the financial trap he has faced

A former timeshare owner was promised a flashy showy vacation, but instead ended up spending $21,000 on a timeshare. He was approached by a timeshare resort in 2017 and thought it would be a good time for him to invest, as his children were getting married and he thought it might make a nice honeymoon destination for them. He also employed several staff at his own small business, and wanted to offer it as an employee perk for loyal staff members.

It is a financial decision, he now says he regrets. He spoke with a news channel in the U.S … Read more

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Off Duty Officer Stops Elderly Neighbour From Being Scammed

An eagle-eyed off duty officer stepped in to stop his elderly neighbour becoming the victim of a fraud after she bought hundreds of pounds worth of gift cards.

The woman, in her 80’s, bought the cards after receiving a call from someone asserting to be from HMRC. The caller told her that there was a warrant out for her arrest due to unpaid tax dating back to the 1950’s. In order to “settle the debt” she would need to buy £500 worth of gift cards, which can be redeemed by anyone if they have the code on the card.

Believing … Read more

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Taxi Driver Stops Fraud In It’s Tracks

A taxi driver who was driving an elderly woman to her bank, has saved her from losing her entire life savings.

A taxi driver from Bristol, was alerted to the potential fraud whilst chatting to her on the journey from her home to the bank. His quick thinking stopped the elderly victim from losing her entire life savings.

The taxi driver said alarms bells started to ring when the 87 year old said she was heading to her bank to withdraw all her money from her account. She explained to the driver how she had received a call from her … Read more

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Ghost Broker Jailed for selling fake car insurance to criminals

A fraudster has been sentenced to two years in prison for setting up fake companies to buy fleet insurance policies for more than 70 vehicles. Police say, some of these vehicles were used by drug dealers and in burglaries.

Suhail Hussain was found guilty of registering seven fake businesses with Companies House and stealing the details of five genuine companies. This enabled Hussain to buy £60,000 worth of false fleet insurance policies, the policies allow businesses to buy insurance cover for all their vehicles under one policy.

Investigators found that Hussain took out 10 fleet policies to cover multiple vehicles … Read more

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Mum of two scammed out of Savings

A mum of two from Birmingham was left in debt after scammers raided her bank account over a five day long sophisticated scam.

The Mirror reports how Hannah Greaves was tricked by cruel fraudsters who convinced her they were working on behalf of her banks fraud department. The fraudsters built up a credible story over the course of five days and were able to gain her trust, before stealing over £9,000.

Hannah said: “I can’t believe how believable the fraudsters were. They seemed to know my bank, NatWest’s website inside out, the layout of the screens and the language the … Read more

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Pension Review Cold-Calls Banned by the Government

Thousands of people have lost their entire life savings through pension mis-selling, now the government has taken action and changed the law to stop this from happening.

Fraudsters have been using the term ‘Free Pension Review’ and over the past four years it is estimated that £46.7 million has been lost in pension cold-calling scams. And the stories of those who have been targeted are truly heart-breaking, with thousands of pensioners after having saved their entire lives, now facing financial hardship in their retirements. This lead to campaigners calling for an Prompt pensions cold-calling ban, to help protect … Read more

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New figures show extent of pension scams

Action Fraud has revealed that two people have reported to the service, that they have lost more than £1 million each to pension scams. However, Action Fraud believes this is only the tip of the iceberg as many victims never contact the authorities to report it and so the total amount of people who have handed over such large pension pots is unknown.

In 2017, the average loss of pension scams was £91,000. Victims reported receiving cold-calls, offers of free pension reviews and promises that they would get high return rates, all of these promises are warning signs of … Read more

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