Hollywood has turned its attention to scams, with two big films out looking at fraudsters. But the tactics the scammers use are not works of fiction.
Even if you are not a cinema fan, you can't have missed the promotion of American Hustle and Wolf of Wall Street. They've both been massively advertised, are hot tips for Oscar success in March and have already featured in other awards. Adding all that together has made them massive box office success stories.
What unites the two films beyond stellar casts is that both revolve around scams. Hustle features an overweight Christian Bale as Irv Rosenfeld who tells the audience early on that his racket – charging near bankrupt businesses a fee for finding loans which never materialise – works because victims have a need to believe. They want to embrace him because he seems able to offer a solution to their woes.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf scams his way to riches via his Stratton Oakmont boiler room operation which sells worthless shares. Although they are rarely seen on screen, victims queue up for his money magic just as they did for the far bigger Bernie Madoff ponzi fraud.
These films are reality-based. And their theme of willing suckers only too eager to part with their dosh for illusory wealth continues. Over the past week, I've been approached by several scam rackets which we would all love to believe were true.
The current accounts that beat the best savings deals
Follow the boxes
What about “turning £300 into £3,000 in under a week with absolutely no risk”? It certainly beats working for a living! But somehow I don't believe it.
[SPOTLIGHT]The guy behind this one is an "award-winning” business guru although I have yet to find the award. Oddly enough, the award winner seems to run a similar business in conjunction with the promoter of this scam. There's the usual rags to riches story, the photos of expensive cars, expensive holidays and trophy family, and to show how easy it is to join in, the website features a blue square and a yellow square. If you can say which one is which colour, then you are bright enough to score big money.
It all revolves around highly leveraged bets on the stock market. But it's “safe” because you only trade when four coloured lights match up on the website. Now if only all those City fund managers knew about this, then my pension fund would be far healthier than it is. It's not free – there's £100 upfront and £150 a month for this “surefire” plan. And of course, it is not covered by any financial services legislation.
Tax return time
It's tax return time. There are only a few days left to complete tax self assessments or face penalties. Most of the one in three taxpayers in this system will have to pay, although a few will qualify for a refund.
That's what the fraudsters behind yet another web scam – this one apparently from Hungary, but it could be anywhere – want me to believe. It's a ludicrously nonsensical email sent to me as part of a Yahoo user group from TaxID-DN183H@taxhmrc.co.uk (the real HMRC is hmrc.gov.uk)
Here it is in full.
Dear Applicant,
Our calculation shows that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 921.17 GBP
To access the form for your tax refund, please Click Here.
Thank you,
HMRC
Oh dear, not even a £ sign! And I was never an applicant.
Hitting “click here” now brings a “reported web forgery” blockage. But if 1% of the millions getting these emails respond with their bank account details because they believe there is some money for them, then this fraud will make the perpetrators more than happy.
I would also like the £1,000 a day consultancy I have been promised to work in PPI complaints handling. But I don't believe in the constant emails I get via social media sites offering this work and I certainly won't be handing over the £999 “registration fee”.
As with all these scams, to stay safe all I need to do is to say “no”. But fraudsters know that “no” is the hardest response to something that looks so brilliant.
The current accounts that beat the best savings deals