Citizens Advice Scotland, Citizens Advice and Trading Standards Services are leading activities throughout the month of May in the fight-back against scammers – giving consumers the information, skills and confidence to spot and stop scams. This week, mail fraud is highlighted with some examples of current scams to be on the look-out for below.
1. Miracle health and slimming cure scams – You’ll get a mailshot announcing an amazing health breakthrough or miracle treatment. These pills, lotions, creams and other products supposedly cure everything from baldness, cancer, impotency or promise easy weight loss. Around £20m a year is spent on these scam products, some of which might even cause harm.
How to avoid them? A miracle slimming cure? Fat chance. If any of this stuff really worked, we’d have read about it in the papers. Don’t be fooled by any of these offers – the testimonials included on the leaflet are often made up, as are the names of the doctors and medical establishments quoted. Some mail order health companies boast about being based outside the UK, but more often than not, that’s so they can avoid UK regulations, which should make you wary about what they’re putting in their pills – and the claims they make for them.
2. Clairvoyant mailings – They’re sent in their thousands, but letters from a so-called psychic or clairvoyant are usually personalised, offering predictions that will change your life – in return for a payment. They may be more sinister, threatening bad luck unless you buy their talisman or amulet. 170,000 of us fall for this every year – 70 per cent of them women – and the total loss of money annually is around £40m a year.
How to avoid it? Put these letters straight in the bin and forget all about them.
3. Fake foreign lotteries – You receive a letter, phone call, or email saying you’ve won a major payout in an overseas lottery, and are asked to send money to cover administration or taxes. The winnings are never received, and it’s a scam that costs 140,000 consumers £260 million every year.
How to avoid it? However official the letter may look (some even use the names of long-established legitimate lotteries) it’s all rubbish. How can you win a prize in a lottery you never bought a ticket for? Some scamsters offer to buy winning lines on your behalf, using some great system to pick the numbers; they may not even buy the tickets they’ve promised you, and they certainly have no way of increasing your chances of winning. They may pretend you’ve won a small amount and send you low-value cheques so that you’ll be persuaded to keep buying more lines. Bear in mind the people behind this scam may just be trying to get your details so they can sell them on. There’s a related scam where you’ll be called by someone claiming to be a law enforcement officer, who says he’s recovered money from you but again, you’ll need to pay a fee for the funds to be released. Again, it’s all nonsense.
You can get online consumer advice and information at:
www.adviceguide.org.uk/scotland.htm
or phone the Citizens Advice Consumer service 08454 04 05 06 for advice.
Check the Action Fraud alerts to common scams/frauds