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Action Fraud has virtually no hope of getting your money back.
allyhall
Posts: 22 Forumite
The British public have been put on "red alert" for fraud – and with very good reason.
Since the new pension freedoms were introduced in April, giving over-55s access to their entire pension fund, there has been an explosion of fraudulent investments in the UK.
Billions of pounds of "unlocked" pension cash is a golden opportunity for con artists.
Nearly every consumer or security organisation – from Citizens Advice to the police – has issued warnings to deter people from handing over their cash to scammers, but no amount of warnings can protect everyone from being tricked.
For the unwise – or unlucky – ones who've handed their money to scammers, there's more bad news.
The chances of you getting your money back are tiny. This is because in many cases the authorities simply won't investigate your case.
Telegraph Money has heard from countless fraud victims who've reported incidents to Action Fraud, the Government's designated facility for dealing with such matters, only to be told that no "action" will be taken.
Even savers who've lost huge amounts (such as one man who lost hundreds of thousands in a wine scam) are finding that their cases simply aren't being dealt with.
Action Fraud's website says: "The first thing you should do if you’ve been a victim of fraud is to contact Action Fraud." It's also the first thing your bank will ask you to do – as banks say it's Action Fraud's job, not theirs, to investigate cases.
With a name like Action Fraud you might expect the organisation to be quick off the mark at chasing the criminals who stole your life savings. But in reality, when complaints are filed victims typically wait six weeks before their case is passed on to another police department to investigate.
This gives criminals plenty of time to move money offshore, escape and continue to trick other savers, often under a different guise.
Action Fraud says it passes cases on to the police only if it believes that the crime was perpetrated by a "network" – a criminal gang that has stolen very large sums from a lot of people. But in order for this to happen, several people have to be scammed, realise this, and then report the incident.
The fraud department at Smith & Williamson, an accountancy firm, said that, from a cost perspective, stings in which victims lost less than £100,000 were simply not worth investigating. It said investigating fraud was so expensive that the cost was highly likely to outweigh the (relatively) small losses.
To an individual, a loss of £10,000 or £50,000 is devastating. But it's small beer compared with the massive cases taken on by the Serious Fraud Office, where thefts of £1m or even £10m are about the smallest cases it will pursue.
If frauds are all lumped into the same basket, it makes sense that the Government would choose to investigate the biggest cases first. Our public services are so carefully scrutinised for value for money that the police are also refusing to visit some burglary victims at home – leaving them to make contact via email instead.
As a nation we need to face up to the fact that the authorities are not investigating this rising number of "small" fraud cases – because we simply don't have the resources. The public purse can't afford it, and asking the banks to pay would only result in them raising the cost of bank accounts and other services for everyone else.
This is why we must do more to prevent people being duped in the first place. It's ludicrous that in this day and age firms and individuals are still allowed to make cold calls to sell financial products. It should become illegal, with hefty fines and prison sentences for those who break the rules.
To protect people further it should also be made illegal to sell unregulated investments that fall outside the protection of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Regulated investments should carry an easily recognisable logo which would be illegal to replicate.
And finally the watchdogs must be honest enough to deliver the most important warning of all: Action Fraud has virtually no hope of getting your money back.
by katie.morley@telegraph.co.uk
Since the new pension freedoms were introduced in April, giving over-55s access to their entire pension fund, there has been an explosion of fraudulent investments in the UK.
Billions of pounds of "unlocked" pension cash is a golden opportunity for con artists.
Nearly every consumer or security organisation – from Citizens Advice to the police – has issued warnings to deter people from handing over their cash to scammers, but no amount of warnings can protect everyone from being tricked.
For the unwise – or unlucky – ones who've handed their money to scammers, there's more bad news.
The chances of you getting your money back are tiny. This is because in many cases the authorities simply won't investigate your case.
Telegraph Money has heard from countless fraud victims who've reported incidents to Action Fraud, the Government's designated facility for dealing with such matters, only to be told that no "action" will be taken.
Even savers who've lost huge amounts (such as one man who lost hundreds of thousands in a wine scam) are finding that their cases simply aren't being dealt with.
Action Fraud's website says: "The first thing you should do if you’ve been a victim of fraud is to contact Action Fraud." It's also the first thing your bank will ask you to do – as banks say it's Action Fraud's job, not theirs, to investigate cases.
With a name like Action Fraud you might expect the organisation to be quick off the mark at chasing the criminals who stole your life savings. But in reality, when complaints are filed victims typically wait six weeks before their case is passed on to another police department to investigate.
This gives criminals plenty of time to move money offshore, escape and continue to trick other savers, often under a different guise.
Action Fraud says it passes cases on to the police only if it believes that the crime was perpetrated by a "network" – a criminal gang that has stolen very large sums from a lot of people. But in order for this to happen, several people have to be scammed, realise this, and then report the incident.
The fraud department at Smith & Williamson, an accountancy firm, said that, from a cost perspective, stings in which victims lost less than £100,000 were simply not worth investigating. It said investigating fraud was so expensive that the cost was highly likely to outweigh the (relatively) small losses.
To an individual, a loss of £10,000 or £50,000 is devastating. But it's small beer compared with the massive cases taken on by the Serious Fraud Office, where thefts of £1m or even £10m are about the smallest cases it will pursue.
If frauds are all lumped into the same basket, it makes sense that the Government would choose to investigate the biggest cases first. Our public services are so carefully scrutinised for value for money that the police are also refusing to visit some burglary victims at home – leaving them to make contact via email instead.
As a nation we need to face up to the fact that the authorities are not investigating this rising number of "small" fraud cases – because we simply don't have the resources. The public purse can't afford it, and asking the banks to pay would only result in them raising the cost of bank accounts and other services for everyone else.
This is why we must do more to prevent people being duped in the first place. It's ludicrous that in this day and age firms and individuals are still allowed to make cold calls to sell financial products. It should become illegal, with hefty fines and prison sentences for those who break the rules.
To protect people further it should also be made illegal to sell unregulated investments that fall outside the protection of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Regulated investments should carry an easily recognisable logo which would be illegal to replicate.
And finally the watchdogs must be honest enough to deliver the most important warning of all: Action Fraud has virtually no hope of getting your money back.
by katie.morley@telegraph.co.uk
0
Comments
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If you're going to copy and paste large chunks of text, it is courtesy to reference your source.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/11812377/Victim-of-fraud-Why-the-authorities-WONT-investigate.html0 -
Suggest the OP reads the laws on copyright and fair usage: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fair-use-rule-copyright-material-30100.html0
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I don't think she needs to worry about copyright if she wrote the article. Anyway, I appreciate the warning but I still find it unbelievable how naive some people are about investing.Je suis sabot...0
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Hoof_Hearted wrote: »I don't think she needs to worry about copyright if she wrote the article. Anyway, I appreciate the warning but I still find it unbelievable how naive some people are about investing.
Hoof Hearted, I too appreciate the warning, not everyone reads the same newspapers and I agree about how naive some people can be when it comes to investing.0 -
The article was written by Katie Morley.Hoof_Hearted wrote: »I don't think she needs to worry about copyright if she wrote the article.
The OP's user name is allyhall so no evidence the OP wrote the article.
The OP appears to post random articles with no comment at all on the content.
The article appears to be taking a swipe at Action Fraud rather than advising potential investors to beware.Hoof_Hearted wrote: »Anyway, I appreciate the warning but I still find it unbelievable how naive some people are about investing.
An interesting link in the article to the scientist who lost £176K on fake Ferrari shares.
A fool and his money are soon parted.0 -
The article was written by Katie Morley.
The OP's user name is allyhall so no evidence the OP wrote the article.
The OP appears to post random articles with no comment at all on the content.
The article appears to be taking a swipe at Action Fraud rather than advising potential investors to beware.
An interesting link in the article to the scientist who lost £176K on fake Ferrari shares.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
well he obviously wasn't a research scientist was he0 -
Obviously not.enfield_freddy wrote: »well he obviously wasn't a research scientist was he
Apparently, this company initially cold-called him asking if he'd be interested in buying a diamond.
When he declined, they continued calling offering various investment opportunities.
You couldn't make it up, really.0 -
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