Millions duped by scams in Britain, report claims

Around five million British adults have been fooled into responding to a variety of scams, new research has claimed.

A survey of over 1,000 adults by consumer magazine Which? identified the most successful con as the use of prize phone lines, which encourage people to call premium rate numbers in order to claim prizes.

Which? claimed that a third of adults had received one of these calls, while two million had responded to them.

The consumer watchdog estimates that as many as 23 million people in Britain have been targeted by scams such as these.

Other scams which were identified in the research were bogus letters claiming international lottery wins and adverts for 'work from home' schemes, as well as letters and emails offering prizes.

Which? said that con artists often make their money by charging a 'contingency fee' in order for winnings to be 'released', or may use bank account details collected from 'winners' trying to claim their prizes.

Regarding 'work from home schemes', Which? said that although not all the adverts were scams, it was often hard to discover what the job entailed and money was almost always requested up front for a joining pack.

The consumer magazine cited one example of a scheme, which merely suggested copying the pack, placing a newspaper ad and sending the same pack to people willing to pay the same fee.

One of the most common email scams is the 'Nigerian 419' scam, named after the relevant part of the Nigerian penal code. Which? said that the scenarios differ, but usually involved a large sum of money waiting to be paid out which, in order to be claimed, required absolute secrecy, a foreign bank account number and an advance fee.

Which? editor Malcolm Coles said: "The con artists who run these scams are experts in fooling people into parting with their money. Unfortunately, it's rare to get something for nothing - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

"Avoid giving them the information they need by checking thoroughly before confirming email addresses or giving bank account details to anybody you don't know."

(KMcA)