'Fraud is being attempted, yet the police won't act' blog discussion

Former_MSE_Helen

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Fraud is being attempted, yet the police won't act" Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

torbrex

Oh the perils of popularity, the scams are not really any different to any other scams other than they are using this site as a tool to try to persuade people to part with their money.
If the victims are savvy enough to know the websites name then surely they will know that this site would never lend itself to a cold calling scheme of any kind.
The police are right to treat it the way they are doing after all no crime has been commited and although prevention is better than cure, I cant see what they can do about your complaints other than the standard warnings.

telsco

Fraud has never been a big crime to the law. eg A burglar stealing £1m from one house would get a bigger sentence than a fraudster who gets £1000 each from a 1000 people. Plus, if the fraudster is arrested, they aren't seen as a danger, so get to go to the comfy prisons.

A potential burglar can be arrested just for 'going equipped to commit burglary', even if they've not broken into a house or taken anything. A potential fraudster won't be arrested for preparing to commit fraud as Martin has just found out.

dtaylor84

You've taken (civil) legal action against people misusing the name Money Saving Expert before - that's probably your best option here...

Paxo123

Unfortunately this is the way that the police now react to Fraud. They do not need to act or take a crime if you are not the "specific intended victim". The Home Office Counting Rules, the rules which govern how crime is recorded, says for Fraud "ONE CRIME FOR EACH SPECIFIC, INTENDED OR IDENTIFIABLE VICTIM." http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/counting-rules/count-fraudforgery?view=Binary

Fraud is making a false representation in order to make a gain for oneself. A false rep is made by the person saying they are from MSE....in order to make a gain for themselves....the person to sign up etc. But the specific intended victim is the person who the false representation was made to and not the person who they say they represent. There are other offences which they could be done under (Trading Standards, Fraud by Failing to Disclose info etc) but again it is the specific intended victim who needs to contact the police for them to deal.

As this is a victim based offence then you need a victim or someone who is reasonably acting on their behalf to confirm the crime. That is the specific intended victim is the only one who can report/confirm the crime.

My biggest bug bear about the reporting and recording of Fraud is that "The Financial Institutions will encourage customers (both personal and business) to report cheque, plastic card (Credit card, Debit card, Prepayment card and Store card) or online bank account fraud directly to them and not the Police in the first instance." So what a great and easy way to cover up the true number of credit card and similar frauds....report it to the banks who have an interest in not showing if their methods are not secure. For the police, it is great as it means that their crime rates are less than they were as they are not recording these types of Frauds anymore.

You could try contacting Action Fraud (http://www.actionfraud.org.uk/) and see what they say as they are the experts on Fraud.



...working in crime recording / crime classification for the last 5 years...

sidthesexist

Not had anyone claiming to be from MSE but in the last couple of months i have been getting several calls from companies claiming they can recover PPI moneys (not sure where they got my number from as i have never looked into recovering anything..) and just 5 mins ago i got a call from some Asian sounding bloke claiming to be from "claims services at the ministry of justice".....

mostlycheerful

"All that is required for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing."
Edmund Burke (1729 -1797).

Well done for highlighting the fraud problem, Martin. The fraud problem is part of a wider malaise in UK.

It’s been deliberate policy by successive UK governments to mostly not prosecute crime. Clear up rates in UK for all crimes except murder are less than 1%.

Clear up rates for rape, violence, burglary, mugging, fraud, drugs, antisocial behaviour etc are all less than 1%.

Clear up rate for rape in UK was recently extensively publicised in the media as being 0.16% which is 1 in 600.

“The police figures say there were five million crimes last year [2007] while the British Crime Survey figures say there were 10.1 million…A knife attack every 4 minutes; 130,000 per year… Former probation officer David Fraser, who studies crime statistics, calculates that there are 62.7million offences committed every year.”

Knife attacks: Damned lies and crime figures
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1036106/STEPHEN-POLLARD-Knife-attacks-Damned-lies-crime-figures.html#ixzz1P7ARtHE8

In UK there are currently 1,600,000 “hardened full time criminals” and 250,000 pedophiles at large running amok doing heavy evil crime every day all the time everywhere with impunity.

But there is no intention by government to ever arrest or imprison any of them other than the occasional token few.

“Using the figures below from 2009 and 2010, the combined UK prison population stands at around 95,000.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_population

But there is no intention to increase prison places to cater for any of the 1,600,000 criminals and 250,000 pedophiles at large :

UK has 250,000 pedophiles, says police study
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1379946/UK-has-250000-!!!!!philes-says-police-study.html

Britain 'blighted by 1.6 million hardened criminals'
Britain has 1.6 million active criminals, new figures show.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6420167/Britain-blighted-by-1.6-million-hardened-criminals.html

Britain has 1.6 MILLION full-time criminals, Home Office study shows
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222610/Britain-1-6m-time-criminals-committing-dozens-offences-year-Home-Office-study-shows.html#ixzz1TWKQJrE5

1.6 million active criminals in Britain revealed in unpublished Home Office research
http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/news/news.cgi?id=796

It is government, police and justice system policy to mostly allow most criminals to continue to do crime with impunity.

The police do what they can and mostly do a good job as far as they can. But they are massively under resourced and under staffed and therefore mostly ineffective. They also have one arm up their backs all the time due to the high standards of evidence required to bring prosecutions coupled with the Human Rights laws which are often allowed to be used to benefit criminals at the expense of victims. As is frequently highlighted by media and campaign groups.

An appalling state of affairs.

This is almost complete failure of government. There is virtually no rule of law or law enforcement in UK. The government, police and justice system are negligent, incompetent, useless and unfit for purpose. This isn’t civilisation, this is the original Darwinian jungle law dog eat dog survival of the fittest in which the strong and brutal prey on the weak and vulnerable and crush them underfoot at will with impunity. Citizens everywhere are continuously under attack from criminals but the government continues to fail to do anything about it. Despite citizens paying them taxpayers’ money to do their jobs to look after us. But they fail to do so.

Shame on them.

If there’s anything more that you can do than what you are already doing to help stop the evil everywhere all the time then well done Martin, more power to your elbow.

But what can you do? The crime problem is highlighted in media continuously and by numerous campaign groups but the government simply ignores them.

The new petition system has already been ignored by Parliament. The first petition to be considered, the one regarding stopping benefits for rioters, got more than 200,000 signatures but Parliament has refused to even consider it or debate it at all.

So what can be done?

John_Pierpoint

Hi Martin,

Welcome to the world's largest crime. Now you know how the rest of us who are victims of identity fraud feel: You cannot prove it was not you and your good name & credit gets messed up.

How about a new section of the forum for discussing dodgy attempts to separate the fool from their money.

"Trade to win" is a forum that does a good job in identifying fraudsters in the financial arena's.
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/brokerages/14154-boiler-room-scams.html

We do manage to run threads from time to time that don't get taken down such as this one from USA that has been running far too long.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1836087

It was a shame that the thread organised by someone calling themselves "beardyblob" (or something like that), got taken down because the swindler, who had probably stolen a 6 figure sum and hacked into this forum to mock his victims, got patted on the head by some kindly lady judge; but I guess he was only 17 like some of the recent crop of "rioters".

I'm on a suckers list for "boiler room" fraud and get a call a week (in spite of never actually falling for the scams). Perhaps it's time for the method of preventing archers from "re-offending" for these scumbags who raise two fingers to society.:rotfl:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/332339
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/332339
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/227606

QUOTE=Paxo123;46844909]

My biggest bug bear about the reporting and recording of Fraud is that "The Financial Institutions will encourage customers (both personal and business) to report cheque, plastic card (Credit card, Debit card, Prepayment card and Store card) or online bank account fraud directly to them and not the Police in the first instance." So what a great and easy way to cover up the true number of credit card and similar frauds....report it to the banks who have an interest in not showing if their methods are not secure. For the police, it is great as it means that their crime rates are less than they were as they are not recording these types of Frauds any more.

[/QUOTE]

This was a government policy, probably encouraged by the banking industry - The "old bill" were out of their depth, their primary job is to "keep the peace" as criminals on the streets are visible and politically unacceptable.

The government needed to massage the crime figures.

The banks, which are an official licensed money creation scheme, don't like the bad publicity.

magpiecottage

Welcome to the real world.

I have lost count of the number of times I have held a letter from one of these firms in one hand that told me the fact find in my other hand did not exist and never had. It is not a victimless crime. We all end up paying for it indirectly by increased charges.

magpiecottage

Have a look here. The explanatory notes tab makes clear that only intent is required.

It also notes that phishing is fraud because the sender presents themselves as a legitimate institution when they are not. I see no reason why that should not apply to phone calls.

Paxo123

magpiecottage, I totally agree for the offence to be made out, you only need to have the intent and make a false rep in order to make a gain...."I am endorsed by MSE so this must be a good offer" would be enough.

But for crime recording purposes the Home Office Counting Rules gives clear examples for when to record a crime:

Although not specific to this example, this is a telephone call based fraud example

Mr ‘A’ is cold called at home by a boiler room and asked if they wish to invest with them.
a) Mr ‘A’ has heard a report about boiler rooms and hangs up before phoning Action Fraud.
There is no crime to record in these circumstances

Likewise with scam e-mails

Example 1: Mrs ‘A’ receives a letter in the post informing her that she has won a European Lottery. There are details of what she has to do to claim the prize.
a) She puts the letter in the bin as she has never held a ticket in a European Lottery.
There is no crime to record in these circumstances, record a crime related incident.
b) On opening the letter, she contacts the number given and is told to transfer money to an account to facilitate claiming the winnings. She puts the phone down and ignores the request.
One crime. Mrs A has become a specific intended victim.
c) On opening the letter, she contacts the number given and is told to transfer money to an account to facilitate claiming the winnings. She transfers money to the account and hears nothing further.
One crime.

Also it down the specific intended victim to make the complaint not MSE.

if there is no crime recorded, then there is no crime to investigate...next motorist for speeding please.