“Mass marketed scams are a problem in the UK. They can take the form of bogus and fraudulent offers sent by post, telephone or email. Fake lottery and prize draw wins, bogus psychic predictions, get-rich-quick investment cons and ‘miracle’ health cures are just some of the tricks used by scammers. Nearly half of the UK adult population has been targeted by a scam, and more than three million adults – one in 15 people – fall victim to scams, losing a total of £3.5 billion every year.”

Three million adults fallen victim to scams? That is staggering. No wonder these scams are such big business these days but perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.

There was a time when anyone involved in the financial and investment businesses was a respected person or company and reputation was everything but times have changed and business these days operates in a similar way to the way the scams do.

For example. You get a phone call claiming to be from a credit card company and straight away they are asking you to give them information to prove who you are. Surely it is they who should be expected to prove who they are when they ring you like that?

So, when someone phones up supposedly from a company you previously had some dealings with you may be puzzled but it is human nature to give them the benefit of the doubt. It has become the norm for any business to push there products at you these days. Not content with you deciding for yourself that you want to use their services every business from your bank to your mobile phone company to BT will try to push you into choosing their service and/or additional services.

So the scammers do not seem that unusual when they phone you unexpectedly and offer you a perfectly reasonable sounding explanation of who they are and what they are offering. They sound very similar to these other legitimate companies promoting their services. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining how come so many people have been scammed.

The OFT are trying to make people more aware of the risks of scams and the Scamnesty campaign is part of the OFT’s ongoing work to build awareness of scams. Among their promotions is the option to give them your scam emails and postal mail. From mid-January there will be Scamnesty pages on Consumer Direct which will be fully Scamnesty branded and include an e-bin for email scams and a postal bin locator. This will allow people to search for their nearest Scamnesty bins by postcode.

So now you know what to do with all those junk emails and dubious offers you receive in the mail. The basic rule must be to be automatically suspicious of anything you are not expecting and have not requested. If your credit card company phones you up you can always tell them you will ring them back and dial the number on your credit card statement.

The same applies to any other financial or investment company that calls you but if it is a company who you don’t recall dealing with before be extremely cautious. If what they say sounds interesting ask them to send something in writing. If they ask for your address be extra vigilant since they claim you had some previous dealing s with them. Not that having an address means anything these days since they are easily obtained.

When you get emails claiming to be from your bank and telling you that security has been compromised/updated or they are checking security of accounts just delete them and never open attachments on such emails as they may well contain trojans, adware, viruses and other dubious pieces of automatic software that can take over your computer or copy everything that you type.

It is a sad fact that these days anyone in the world can set up a scam and appear to be someone local to you but if we remain vigilant we can hopefully avoid the worst of the problems they present. Finally if ever you are tempted to invest thousands of pounds with someone who phones you up out of the blue just stop and think for a minute.

If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is and you should run away. It would be sensible to discus with a registered qualified financial advisor any investment you are considering but most especially if this is the result of a phone call from someone you have no reason to trust.

You can read more about scams and how they operate at the OFT website by CLICKING HERE

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For many people their home is their largest, perhaps only, investment and to raise money to enjoy a better lifestyle they might be tempted to sell their home. Most people would prefer to stay where they are so the idea that you could sell your home yet continue to live there as a rent payer is appealing.

Unfortunately there have been lots of cases where this process has been widely abused. The homes are usually purchased at a significant discount from the market value which has tempted some unscrupulous purchasers to evict their new tenant as soon as they can so the house can be sold at a considerable profit while other cases have been reported where the tenant has been evicted by the new mortgage holder after the buyer has failed to make the payments on their mortgage.

People who had been promised that they could remain in their home for the rest of their lives have found themselves evicted within a year or eighteen months and something clearly needed to be done about this.

Now the Financial Services Authority (FSA) have announced new rules on these types of transactions.
The FSA has:-

* banned exploitative advertising and high-pressure sales techniques and prohibited the use of emotive terms like ‘fast sale’, ‘mortgage rescue’ and ‘cash quickly’ in promotional literature;

* introduced a 14 day cooling-off period to give consumers more time to make decisions on sale and rent back;

* banned cold calling and prohibited firms from dropping promotional leaflets through letter boxes;

* confirmed rules to ensure consumers have a security of tenure for a minimum of five years;

* introduced an affordability and appropriateness check across all sales to check that the sale and rent back deal is right for the consumer; and

* put in place measures to ensure all risks are clearly signposted to the customer, via FSA literature and during the sales process.

Security of tenure for 5 years is better than nothing but if you sell and rent back on the assumption you can remain in your home for the rest of your life 5 years doesn’t sound so much. It is, however, a very positive thing that the FSA are acting to curb some of the excesses that have grown up within this industry.

The FSA have also made it compulsory for firms engaged in home sale and rent back to be licenced. All firms active in the sale and rent back market must be authorised otherwise they face potential fines or imprisonment. The FSA is proactively monitoring the SRB market for unauthorised activity, and will take action if necessary.

Consumers should ensure that they only deal with authorised firms and be aware of the risks involved in sale and rent back schemes. Consumers are encouraged to call 0300 500 5000 immediately if they are aware of sale and rent back firms who continue to trade without being authorised.

You can find out more about Home Sale And Rent Back  by <clicking here>

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Being conned into becoming a ‘mule’ is a sophisticated type of online fraud that could leave you with a frozen bank account and facing criminal charges but it all starts with an innocent looking email message offering a job.

Responding to these advertisements offering what seems like well paid work for important sounding jobs such as ‘money transfer agent’,’shipping manager’ or as a ‘mystery shopper’ to carry out simple tasks. Once the innocent job seeker has been recruited by a fraudster, the mule carries out transfers of the money illegally gained in one country to another country quite unaware that they are carrying out illegal transfers.

Once they have been ‘recruited’, money mules are persuaded to share their bank details which would not seem unreasonable if their wages are to be paid into their bank. The ‘mule’ is then unwittingly used to launder the profits of the fraudsters’ criminal activities.

This is a particularly worrying trend as at any given time, it is estimated that there may be 100 known mule recruitment sites targeting the UK and each of these may have lured up to 50 innocent people into being active mules. By allowing their bank accounts to be used to receive and transfer illegal funds the mules are breaking the law – even if they don’t realise it.

Mules may then become part of a police investigation and are most likely to be the easiest part of the criminal chain to track down with a fair likelihood of being caught. Once they have been caught money mules will probably have their bank accounts suspended and they may even find themselves liable for all the proceeds of the fraud.

The ease of use of the internet and the relative ease of setting up what looks like a legitimate company online makes these scams a dangerously easy operation to set up and and easy one to fall prey too if you are short of money and looking for work. Be very conscious of the possible risks and make sure you check the credentials of any potential employer offering and online job.
If you have reservations about any job offer or any other online services or offerings take a look at the website at www.getsafeonline.org and read more about avoiding scams and identity theft and online credit card fraud.

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The changes suggested as to how payments are applied to the account mean that the most expensive portion of the debt should be paid off first. This is the complete opposite of what is currently normal practice whereby the lowest interest bearing debt is cleared first while the high debts continue to rack up interest for the credit card company. This is a sensible change of benefit to all consumers who use credit cards.

The raising of credit limits whenever the credit card company wants to has always been a controversial practice. Sometimes it may be helpful to a customer who has a temporary need of credit but it has often enabled people to get into more debt than they can comfortably manage because it was all too easy to use up the additional credit.
It would be no bad thing to require credit card companies to consult their customers before raising limits and inaction by the customer would, presumably, mean their credit limit would stay the same. This seems like another good proposal as anything that requires you to think about your financial situation has to be a positive thing, enabling people to better understand if they are using more credit than they can comfortably afford.

The proposed change in minimum payments is, at first glance, to be welcomed. Credit card debt is expensive debt and the longer it runs the more it costs you. Credit cards are not the right financial tools for long term debt and a personal loan is far cheaper and more suitable for that purpose. For new credit card debt I think this would be a good thing. I do have concerns that it could be bad for some people and actually make their financial situation worse.

For anyone who already has credit card debt and may be struggling to meet the current repayments, raising the minimum payment could be disastrous. It could lead to failure to pay the minimum payments which, in turn, would lead to additional charges and push these people into even greater debt with little hope of digging themselves out again.
It could ultimately lead to them ending up in bankruptcy if month after month they are unable to make their repayments. If this change is to be applied it would seem wiser to apply it to new credit card debt and leave old debts on the previous level.
Increased minimum payments on credit cards is a sensible move but should only apply to new debt or new credit cards to avoid making some consumers suffer even more from their spending in the past.

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Many people would not consider consulting a solicitor for fear of huge charges but the free community legal advice service offers a telephone helpline offering free legal advice on 0845 345 4345 for anyone on benefits or living on a low income. They offer advice on a range of legal issues but also offer a variety of leaflets and factsheets that might benefit many people who do not fall within the scope of the free legal advice service.

The website offers a lot of useful information and the leaflets cover a range of issues from debt to divorce, renting property to wills and probate and a lot of other areas as well. Well worth a look and a useful website to bookmark for the future. You can see a list of the online documents available here… CommunityLegalAdvice.org.uk

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