UK underequipped to deal with scammers

Rights, Scams and Politics

John Fitzsimons
Updated on 04 July 2011 | 12 Comments

A damning new report says that the authorities are failing to keep on top of scammers. It's up to us to stay vigilant!

The UK’s systems for dealing with and protecting consumers from scammers are a mess, exposing us all to dodgy rip-offs and scams that cost the nation millions of pounds each year.

That’s the conclusion of a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) into the UK’s Trading Standards offices, a report which makes for pretty grim reading.

A fragmented system

The NAO’s study found that Trading Standards departments currently log information about the different scams on two separate database systems. Brilliantly however, those two databases are completely incompatible, allowing crooks and their money-making ploys to slip through the net. A triumph of technological incompetence.

What’s more, local Trading Standards departments have shown an unwillingness to take on cases which go beyond their local areas.

In addition, the framework for prioritising and allocating cases, which was introduced by the Office of Fair Trading, was identified as not being implemented properly. Many of the regions of the UK have not got the support structures in place for investigations, while there is also a lack of clarity over who should be taking cases forward. This has resulted in the OFT only taking enforcement action on two of the 15 cases referred to it over the past two years.

Related how-to guide

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These issues are contributing to the cost of such scams hitting £4.8bn a year. And it’s only likely to get worse, with the budgets for Trading Standards departments set to be slashed.

Clearly, relying on the authorities to keep on top of the scammers is asking too much in the present climate. However, there are things you can do to keep yourself as safe as possible.

Scam ticket websites

Very timely, this one, as we enter festival season. Every year we see more and more sophisticated scam ticketing websites, offering impossibly good deals on tickets for everything from festivals to gigs.

However, while these sites have got better, there are still telltale signs that highlight they are dodgy, from a lack of contact details beyond a PO Box number to the absence of the 'https' prefix of the URL when you move to the transaction page.

Have a read of Eight ways to spot a scam ticket website to ensure you’re on your toes!

Borrowing scams

According to the Office of Fair Trading, a whopping 270,000 borrowers shelled out upfront fees to people to help them secure loans over the past year. Of course, many of those people never actually received the loan.

The authorities are now clamping down on this by revoking credit licenses and issuing fines, while an outright ban on such upfront fees is being lobbied for. For a full guide on these scams, and how to keep safe, have a read of Beware this loan scam!

Phishing, pharming and skimming

Identity fraud

It’s bad enough when a scammer makes off with the cash in your current account, but if they manage to pinch your identity, they can get their hands on even more money, leaving you to pick up the pieces of your decimated credit report.

Last year saw an 11% jump in fraudulent applications for credit, according to Experian, so it’s a growing problem. There are all sorts of ways the fraudsters get hold of the details to steal your identity, from nicking the post you’ve thrown away to following you (and the information you give away) on social networking sites.

Check out The top ten UK fraud hotspots for more on how to keep your identity secure.

Read our Scam Magnet blog!

And finally, each week we publish a Scam Magnet blog, written by Tony Levene. Tony seems to attract scammers like moths to a flame, and highlights some of the worst scams and rip-offs in operation, and how to avoid them. Be sure to subscribe, so you’re always on top of the latest tricks designed to separate you from your cash!

More: The tracker mortgage that protects you from rate rises | Don’t make this £335m holiday mistake

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Comments

pbiss
06 July 2011
Unfortunately, site blocking will not always work. Many scammers plant e-mail robot trojans on unprotected computers, making them part of a bot-net. This enables them to send a command to members of "their" bot-net to send the scam e-mail. You can usually see where this is the case by checking the e-mail headers for the source machine - except where the scammer has been clever enough to implement IP address spoofing. They can do the same with a robot Web server for the Web site that implements a phishing scam, enabling them to move the Web site around before it gets blocked / taken down. I have succeeded in getting one or two criminal Web sites taken down but fixed sites that you can successfully finger are becoming increasingly rare. The best defence is paranoid suspicion - click on nothing unless you are absolutely sure and have checked by any means available to you. And remember, most banks say they will NEVER send e-mails asking for your details.
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CuNNaXXa
05 July 2011
The real issue is not that there aren't laws to deal with specific circumstances, but that the laws are designed to keep the honest in line, and aren't effective against those who don't care about the law. Take the following examples of penalising the innocent. 1) Speed Cameras. Only the honest motorist gets caught. The camera is unable to determine that a car may be stolen, and will still generate a report that implicates the vehicle owner regardless. If Speed Cameras were replaced with good old fashioned Patrols, the dishonest are less likely to get away with it. 2) Identity Theft. Thieves pose as someone to steal money from banks and other financial institutions, yet those very institutions will blame the person who's identity was stolen. This is known as shifting the blame. 3) Building Regulations. These are designed to bog down the honest tradesman with red tape and fees, often amounting to thousands a year, yet those dishonest tradesmen who operate outside these regulations can effectively operate without penalty, because no one within the local councils can be bothered to do anything, and the only people to suffer are the home owners who are often left with less than satisfactory workmanship. To effectively enforce policy and law, we need a government who can actively police their rules and regulations. It is no good having a law, such as the Data Protection Act, if there is no real enforcement. In fact, the DPA is probably one of the most abused Acts of Parliament, simply because too many organisations are sharing our information without our consent, and there is too little policing, or enforcement.
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eLJay
04 July 2011
Why not put a site blocking system in place and keep tracking scammers activities with ISP's using searchbots. The technology is there they just need to learn to use it.
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