Other Tricks and Methods

Thieves are quite inventive in their efforts to separate your from your money. A recent change is that international and transcontinental thieves are targeting people in the UK. They use a variety of methods and I have illustrated a few below, to show you what to look out for.

Chain Letters

An old trick that often attempts to intimidate people into keeping the chain going. You get a letter which tells you to send money to the person at the top of the list; add your own name to the bottom; and send it to ten new people. It doesn’t work.

Phoney foreign lines

One of the latest tricks is fraudulent speeding fines. Criminals spot a UK driver on the continent, take the number and details of the car they are driving, then wait a couple of weeks.

The UK driver is surprised when the postman delivers a very official-looking speeding ticket, or parking infringement notice. Enclosed with the notice is a demand for the fine to be paid to a given address. More often than not there was no speeding or illegal parking – it is just a trick to part you from your money. It works because on the whole British drivers are quite law abiding. They don’t remember the roads they went down or where they parked, so many drivers will assume they did it and pay up!

There are increasing numbers of these phoney fines coming through. If in doubt, don’t pay immediately. Contact the embassy of the country where the fine is supposed to have been issued and check it with them. If you have been naughty – pay up. If not, submit a copy of the documents you received to the embassy and ask them to forward everything to the correct law enforcement organisation. Don’t forget to include a request for them to tell you what has happened to the criminals.

Tricks and cons

There are any number of tricks and cons being tried by hundreds of different people and organisations. The common theme is that they usually play on your greed and all promise something for what seems to be nothing. The most common trick is the shady government funds transfer.

The victim gets a letter on what looks like official government stationery from someone in a developing country. The writer claims to be an official in the ministry of something or other and his letter goes on to explain that they want to transfer some money into the UK and need a UK citizen to help with the transfer. They want to transfer several million pounds to your account which will be there for a few days and then transferred to official accounts elsewhere. For allowing them to use your account you will be paid a fabulous reward, such as 1% of the funds moving through your account, or a flat fee of £250,000. The letter asks the victim to write back to an official looking address.

What happens even if they do make the transfer and you get paid for allowing it to go through your bank account? When the UK tax office finds out (banks automatically report large transfers), you will have a lot of explaining to do and a very complicated tax return to make. What about international terrorism funding? The FBI, MI5 and MI6 would start sniffing around if you were laundering millions of pounds in this situation. I think that the police organised crime units would take an interest in you as well, but that’s just untrusting old me! Maybe you still think it sounds like a good idea?

So, if anyone is stupid enough to write back to them, these foreign criminals know they have a ripe fish on the hook. Somebody who has let their guard down, somebody who is vulnerable and a little greedy. Their next letter starts by asking for your bank details, which you should never give anyway. A few letters exchange telling you about the increasing sums of money that will be moving and how much you will be getting out of the deal. The letters promise further transactions when this one goes through without a problem. But you get a letter saying there is a problem.

The official writes to tell you that you have to have an account in their country through which the transfers will take place. By this time you have been swapping letters for a few weeks, maybe a few emails too, so you can almost smell all that cash.

Not wanting to lose the deal now you ask how you can open an account, and then the real sting starts. The official tells you that you need to send, say, £500 to open the account and make it look real. If you send that, he tells you he needs to make a few bribes to get officials to look the other way when the big transfer takes place, so you send some more money.

By now you have two or three thousands pounds, three months and 15 letters invested in this. Another £1,000 to bribe a few more officials seems to be such a small investment to guarantee the big pay off. . .

The trouble is there is no official, there is no huge payment, no funds transfer, nothing other than an elaborate trick to get you to send them some money. Bribes were probably paid to get some official headed paper. I even heard of one guy who, when he received the first letter, telephoned the government offices out there. When he asked to speak to the official by name and title he was put through somewhere to someone so he thought it was OK. He went ahead and sent out several thousand pounds. When he realised it was a scam, he called back on the same number but this time nobody knew of the official. Bribes can do a lot for you in some countries!

‘You’ve won a prize’ letters

These letters are very common at the moment. You receive an official-looking letter. Stop there! What is an official-looking letter?

Headed paper? Printed neatly? It says it is official? It comes from an official organisation? It includes the name of a well-known bank, or has the logo of an international company, or claims to be supported by the UK government or some other group?

Some letters are genuine and most are junk mail at best, or outright attempts at crime at worst. That letter might look impressive, but you shouldn’t believe a word it claims until and unless you can prove it.

Where were we? You receive a letter that attempts to look ‘official’. It is worded very carefully, claiming that you have won a major prize. These letters are usually quite confusing, because they come with a number of leaflets, offers, prize draw stamps, reply slips and so on.

They usually claim that you have won a prize, but you have to phone a premium rate number to see what prize you have won. Or:

• you have to buy something from them to make your claim;
• you have to register to claim your prize;
• you have to send a fee to register with them to claim your prize.

Or, any other cheap confidence trick!

If you have entered a competition, you are informed if you have won a prize. If you haven’t entered a competition, it is highly unlikely that you have won a prize anyway. If you have won a prize through any legitimate organisation, they will contact you and send you your prize. I doubt if they will ask you to send £50 to a foreign address, buy something, or spend any money in any other way to qualify to receive that prize.

Counterfeit money

At any large public gathering criminals are likely to attempt to pass counterfeit currency. There is so much counterfeit currency around that you will regularly see shop staff checking every note they are given. If there is enough around for companies to instruct staff to check every note, shouldn’t you be checking notes given to you as well?

Counterfeit notes and coins have no value and it is a criminal offence to attempt to pass them on. Just to make sure you understand that – if you take a forged £50 note, then realise it is forged and try to pass it on to avoid the loss, you are now committing the criminal offence!

When discovered, all counterfeit money should be surrendered and the police notified. The person who has the note when it is discovered or identified as counterfeit unfortunately loses, because nobody has a responsibility to refund any money lost.