Don't be duped by the Council Tax fraudsters
These scammers promise to help cut your Council Tax bill, but they'll leave you out of pocket.
Council Tax demands hit properties this month. The vast majority are the same, or fractionally different, from 2013-14. But the bills remain daunting, especially for those living on a fixed income. And it is not helped by the huge discrepancies. The owner of a seven bedroom mansion in Mayfair can pay less than the resident of a three bedroom semi in Nottinghamshire.
Council Tax in England (it's slightly different elsewhere in the UK) is based on eight price bands, which come not from the current value but what it was worth in 1991. You can appeal against a banding - it costs nothing - but the grounds are limited. Your best chance is if the property has fallen in value because it has been partly demolished or it has been substantially adapted for someone with disabilities.
But that does not stop scam 'Council Tax reduction' businesses. I recently received an automated phone message urging me to cut my Council Tax simply by following a “few simple steps”.
One was to send a “refundable” £199 for an “assessment” to determine if I could make an appeal. If I had no grounds, I would not pay. But if I was overpaying, I could apparently claim all the way back to 1991 or when I moved in, if later. The firm would then take 20% of my refund.
Not as good as it sounds
How could I lose? Inevitably it does not work like that. The fact is that anyone can make an appeal, but as the grounds are so limited, almost all will be rejected. I would of course lose my £199 - my scam company only promised that it would investigate if I could make that appeal.
This is reminiscent of automated PPI messages with their “no win, no fee” £499 upfront, which they claim is the key to a refund of everything ever paid on a credit card. Anyone can complain to their bank. But equally, the bank can reject all these appeals as the nonsense they are.
Going back further, there was a thriving scam in 'European Union grant applications'. Dishonest firms targeted small businesses saying they could help them apply for EU cash in return for £399 – again “refundable”. I could have applied for a farming or fishing grant even though I do neither activity. I would have simply received an automated rejection letter.
A Lancastrian scam?
Oddly, the majority of these scams are based in Manchester and the surrounding Lancashire area. Some have been sending out people door to door to convince vulnerable residents, often asking for bank details as well. Some claim there have been “Council Tax rule changes”. That is true but, if anything, they make it even more difficult to avoid the charge.
Earlier this month, Lancashire-based Dalton & Dalton Tax Consultants Ltd was wound up in the public interest by the Insolvency Service. The company “misrepresented its ability to obtain Council Tax rebates for customers”, making unsolicited calls to arrange appointments for its sales agents to visit prospective customers at home. The court heard the representatives invariably told prospective customers that “they were likely to be successful with an application for Council Tax re-banding and hence a rebate of Council Tax paid in previous years”.
The doorstep seller or the cold caller persuaded the resident to sign an agreement with £165 upfront to “instruct Dalton & Dalton Tax Consultants”. In the event that the company achieved a Council Tax rebate for a customer, it would retain a 25% ‘success fee’ of the refund.
It was a lucrative business. The firm banked £1,085,946, with just £17,688 apparently coming from success fees. That represented just 27 of the 2,750 concluded Council Tax banding challenges made by the company. Other customers had handed over their money, without even seeing an appeal.
Dalton & Dalton had no skills other than persuasion – anyone can call themselves “tax consultants”.
The website is no more but it did say: “We are an industry leading, highly qualified, and professional consultancy, providing solutions on an individual basis to private clients and businesses.”
And on social media it claimed: “We offer a free Assessments service which will discover which band your property should be in. Only with your acceptance will we proceed to challenge your Council Tax banding, and then we will go ahead only if we believe we can get your bill lowered."
It was all rubbish but many hard up Council Tax-payers want to believe these lies. And while Dalton & Dalton is no more, there are others filling that vacuum.
A man working out of the Bury location has been arrested but not yet charged following a police and trading standards operation following a number of complaints of fraud by false representation made against the company which related to obtaining Council Tax refunds.
More on scams:
Don't fall for these Will scams
Firm pushing "the ultimate scam" closed down
The banking scam that targets the rich
Don't be enticed into this 'banned' investment!
Comments
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Overtone. By the way just to clear, I missed "back" out of the cash handers bit. so to be clear I meant "cash back handers" which currently, according to the local TV news, has been going on at some Welsh local dictatorships ( councils as you having been riding the gravy train might prefer call them ). As to what I think there should be instead, well how long have you got?. First thing should be accountability, by that I mean real and open accountability, not the current we are learning by our past mistakes crap as a way of brushing mistakes under the carpet. For example as soon as one of your ex-mates is maybe found with his hand in the till "so to speak" they should do as would happen in the real world. Sack them! End all this suspension on full pay crap that often is used while they investigate and find a way to cover it all up. Perfect example: A Welsh council CEO waiting trial was reported, to of fiddled his own 6 figure pay rise. That guy is currently sitting at home on full pay. Why should he sit at home at the publics expense getting full pay for doing nothing?. At best should of been, if not sacked for fiddling, at least suspended without pay. But really he should of been sacked as soon as found out, and his past 12 months pay should of been taken away from him under the proceeds of crime act. The above are just a few of the changes that are needed. But of course first what is needed is massive sacking at local councils, get rid of over staffing. After that a new culture of job sharing. If there is nothing to do in the board room get them out sweeping the streets. But what ever first there needs to be some effective management. What do we get?. Just one example I witnessed and videoed, 5 men turn up in no less that three separate vans. What for?, to fix a single hole in a pavement approx 12 x 6 inches. Had that same job of been done by the private sector, the job would of been done at a fraction of the cost. They I bet would of send one van, one man. So let the council start there, Sack all surplus labour. The other council four who rolled up with the guy who actually did the job. I noted they spent their time texting, smoking, drinking and reading the paper. They certainly were not working. That in a nut shell is local government. Thats probably why it costs so much for anything the council does. Ultimately you can duplicate the above example in every council dept. There is no credible effective management or accountability, because when their short of money all they need do is force the council tax payer to pay more. Lastly you can kid yourself if you wish, but I don't consider the UK a democracy. It is a dictatorial state. What ever we are only free as long as we do as we are ordered to do, and pay when ordered, what we are ordered to pay. How is that democratic? Remember council tax and business rates are not based on ability to pay. They are both based on entrapment of circumstance. Once they have us trapped and cornered the likes of these council hypocrites with all their rigged rules to ensure we have no choice. That is not freedom or democracy, it is pure government extortion. To make it simple imagine if TESCO could force you to give them £50 a week, even if you insisted on shopping at ASDA every week.
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Fender: there is absolutely nothing to stop YOU standing for election to your local council.
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Mr g0nqk What democracy? The UK government go on about democracy but really their idea of democracy is "do as we tell you" and pay what we order you to pay", or else. Thats not democracy its a watered down dictatorship. Thats what we get in place of real democracy and choice. In wales its even worse because we have a bunch of amateur have a go glorified ex union bosses running the show. The welsh bunch of hypocrites are slowly turning Wales into an English version of the Ukraine with their backward thinking, just look at the mess they have made of education and health. If you doubt what I'm saying then try standing up to the clap trap, hypocrisy and lies, refuse to pay and question your council tax demand, see where it gets you. Better still go to court, see if you can spot any democracy or fair play once you get there. You then might just see how stitched up and exploited we all are. Watch council tax and Stephen Barry on you tube, its a real eye opener. As far as Council Tax and business rates is concerned, both are pure legalised theft, apart from a few scraps and scrapings they chuck at the public, it is literary robbing the public in order to keep the gravy train moving for the chosen few. We all need to stand together as they did when the pole tax idea came about, lets all refuse to pay council tax and business rates, then it might just get sorted out once and for all.
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25 April 2014