ACPO figures recently released indicated the cost of fraud to the British Economy to be £20 billion per year. With a North West population of 6.8 million this represents a cost of approximately £8 billion to the regional economy.
The North West Fraud Forum, NWFF, is a not-for-profit association that is dedicated to raising fraud awareness in organisations within the North West of England and delivers a programme of activity focused on detecting, reducing and preventing fraud.
To further its aims, NWFF delivers seminars, training and risk reduction advice to stakeholders within the region, and encourages public and private sector collaboration to fight fraud and financial crime and to protect the North West economy. Its members represent a diverse range of organisations including regional police forces, firms of solicitors and accountants, banks, building societies and insurance companies, and local councils.
The good times of too-high price almost always engender much fraud. All people are most credulous when they are most happy; and when much money has just been made, . . . . there is a happy opportunity for ingenious mendacity."
Source: Walter Bagehot Lombard Street 1873
The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC recently released the first National Fraud Strategy, which aims to crackdown on the fraudsters who cost the UK £14 billion a year, by strengthening the counter-fraud community’s response to their activities and providing real help, protection and support to individual consumers and businesses.
Baroness Scotland QC, says: "This Strategy represents an emphatic response from the Government - and the wider economy, to the misconception that fraud is a ‘victimless crime’. Fraud costs every person in the country £231 per year. I am very aware of the financial and personal misery frauds, such as e-mail scams, identity theft, mortgage and credit card fraud, through to Ponzi schemes and share sale frauds, can inflict on consumers and businesses.
The National Fraud Strategy represents further Government action to deliver real help for consumers and businesses by creating a more hostile environment for fraudsters. The Strategy makes clear that there are fair rules which apply to individuals, communities and businesses alike and there will be clear consequences for those who break them.
The National Fraud Strategic Authority will co-ordinate activity, remove gaps and overlaps, and maximise opportunities to ensure all counter-fraud activities can deliver the greatest possible results. We are working to provide real help now to people and businesses to make it tougher to defraud them."
Developed by the newly-established National Fraud Strategic Authority (NFSA), an executive agency of the Attorney General's Office, the Strategy brings together for the first time over 25 key private and public sector organisations. The Strategy complements a range of Government measures to safeguard a fairer deal for consumers announced by the Prime Minister on 17 March. The three-year Strategy tackles four key priorities designed to shift the balance of risk back on to fraudsters.
Building on good work already underway, the strategy aims to focus counter-fraud activity on four priority areas:
Sandra Quinn, NFSA interim Chief Executive Officer says: "Tackling fraud effectively requires everyone across the economy to work together. So, in developing this Strategy, one of the NFSA’s fundamental principles has been to harness and enhance the existing work, energy, expertise, resources and opportunities for action provided by our delivery partners across government, business and the voluntary sector."
"This Strategy is a launch pad from which we can move forward to increase the risk fraudsters have to undertake to commit their malicious crimes, while increasing the protection and confidence of people and businesses to go about their business safely."
A copy of the strategy document can be downloaded from here.
To find out more about the NFSA visit their website at: National Fraud Strategic Authority.
"The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence"
Source: Charles Caleb Colton
Figures released today (01 October 2008) by APACS, the UK payments association, show that total card fraud losses increased by 14 per cent in the six months to June 2008 compared with the first half of 2007. Total card fraud losses for this period now stand at £301.7m, of which more than 40 per cent is the result of fraud abroad - which typically involves criminals using stolen UK card details at cash machines and retailers in countries that have yet to upgrade to chip and PIN.
Source: www.apacs.org.uk
‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it’
Source: Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)
The pages have been set up by the Sterling Prevention Unit, part of the Economic and Specialist Crime OCU (SCD6) as a resource to assist in combating specific types of fraud and other economic crime, and to prevent you becoming a victim of crime.
Sterling is the Metropolitan Police initiative to tackle Economic Crime throughout London. By working together with individuals and organisations, from all levels of the private and public sectors, Sterling aims to make London safer from all types of Economic Crime. Innovative new techniques are being developed to prevent, disrupt, and prosecute fraud related offences.
Please send all banking related phishing emails to reports@banksafeonline.org.uk. Queries related to Paypal or Ebay should be sent to spoof@paypal.co.uk and spoof@ebay.co.uk respectively. Please copy us into any emails that are sent to these organisations. Please note we will not respond to ALL emails sent into the Fraud Alert team, unless we require further information or clarification from you. We apologise for this, but this is necessary due to the volume of email traffic we are receiving.
An e-mail purporting to have been sent by Lloyds TSB is asking people to send in their computer IP address to an unknown address because "our online security team has discovered some foreign ip log ons to your account" and the bank want to keep internet banking secure.
The website accessed by clicking on to confirm your IP is nothing to do with Lloyds Bank. By passing on your IP, you are opening up your computer to allow access by outsiders who can either plant a virus or Trojan on your computer or even access and use your computer without your knowledge.
If you receive an e-mail like this apparently originating from a bank, please forward it to reports@banksafeonline.org.uk
Source: www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/
Answer: We would suggest that you liaise directly with your merchant acquiring bank who will be best placed to suggest the best course of action and how best to investigate. Card Watch can merely provide general information we do not offer any investigation or law enforcement services.
Each police force has a single point of contact for financial institutions to report plastic card fraud offences, however individual merchants who are reimbursed by their financial institution do not need to report these matters direct to police, as this will be done by the financial institution concerned. Where the individual merchant bears the loss, a report will need to be made by the merchant to the police for recording and investigation purposes. It should be noted that this process is applicable to England, Wales and Northern Ireland only.
A guide to the information and process required when reporting suspected CNP fraud to the police is available from the retailers' publications section of the Card Watch website.
The Home Office Counting Rules for Recorded Crime (HOCR) contain detailed guidance on how police forces should be recording all types of crime reported to them.
Fraud by False Representation involving Cheque, Plastic Card and Online Bank accounts is covered by Classification 53C at the following web link: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/countrules.html.
Source: Card Watch is a UK banking industry initiative that aims to raise awareness of card fraud prevention. It is managed by APACS, the UK payments association.
Thought for today: "It is a fraud to borrow what we are unable to pay." Syrus, Publilius