If you have ever received a lottery ‘winners’ letter for a competition you hadn’t entered or an offer from a mystic clairvoyant to change your fortunes, (for just a few pounds), then you are one of the many thousands of people targeted each week by mass marketing scams.
May is National Scams Awareness Month and Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service wants Warwickshire residents and businesses to forward any potential scam letters, emails or phone calls to them at the following FREEPOST address:
FREEPOST CV1898
Warwickshire County Council
Trading Standards Service
Old Budbrooke Road
WARWICK CV35 7BR
Mark your letter ‘Scams Awareness Month 2012’.
This information will be recorded and used to investigate the scale of the problem both in Warwickshire and across the country.
For more information on scams, visit: www.warwickshire.gov.uk/scams
30/04/2012 Clairvoyant Scam
Warwickshire Trading Standards has received a number of complaints about 'clairvoyant scams'. These letters, targeted at vulnerable people, promise to solve the recipients problems by offering to send a range of items from £10,000 cheques to 'luck rings', all for the cost of £35!
Small print reveals the £10,000 cheque to be part of a prize draw, which the letter then goes on to state has NEVER been won.
Trading Standards advise recipients of these letters to bin them and never respond. Those who do are likely to be sent other scams.
30/04/2012 Alarm Hard Sell
Warwickshire Trading Standards are warning consumers to beware of cold calls from home alarm companies offering 'free' intruder alarms worth £1,500. The caller refused to confirm whether or not the 'free' alarm would be accompanied by a costly annual monitoring charge.
Trading Standards Officers advise residents that such offers are usually accompanied by expensive contracts to monitor the alarms and the requirement is often unsuitable for the needs of the resident. If you require security advice, contact your local Police Crime Prevention Officer.
30/04/2012 Scam 'Begging' Letters
A number of consumers have contacted the service recently regarding bogus begging letters. One purports to come from a Spanish 'doctor' who claims that a patient of his (now deceased) had assets of $24.6m which would now be lost to the Spanish state. However, the 'doctor' believes that with the help of the letter's recipient, the money can be accessed and removed from the Spain where in it would be split 60:40. All the 'doctor' requires is that the recipient contact him via email.
This is a classic advanced fee fraud letter and on contacting the 'doctor' the letter's recipient would be asked to provide money to 'facilitate' the transfer of the 'fortune'. This would continue until the victim runs out of money or spots the scam.
- The email alert system is a quick, simple and cost effective means by which Warwickshire Trading Standards can alert interested individuals, community organisations, businesses, charities and others to the latest Trading Standards issues/scams etc.
- Please feel free to cascade this information to whom ever you feel appropriate (including using the information in your newsletters/websites etc.). Please ignore the Restricted Notice on the bottom of this page - this is automatically generated but is not meant to apply to the information in this email.
- The email alert system is designed to work as a two way communications system. Therefore, if you have any information you wish to provide to Warwickshire Trading Standards Service, either for our information, or to appear in future email alerts, please email me.
- To add, amend or remove your details from this email circulation list, again, please email me.
Simon Cripwell
Senior Information Officer
Trading Standards Service
Communities
Warwickshire County Council
tel. 01926 414039
mob. 07771 975570
email. simoncripwell@warwickshire.gov.uk
web. www.warwickshire.gov.uk
My normal working days are Monday to Thursday
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