Episode 3 In Your Corner

Hello it is 7.30pm, I'm Wendy Austin. This is In Your Coner and

Hello. Each week on In Your Coner we're coming live from a different

part of Northern Ireland. To tonight we have lock anyway to the

east -- loch anyway. We are in the centre of Cookstown in the Burnavon

Theatre. Cookstown is a happening place with ambition to be the

retail centre for the area. And this arts and cultural venue is the

hub of music, theatre and zra ma for mid--- drama for mid-Ulster.

With the help of the staff at the Burnavon Theatre, it has been

turned into a television studio as the In Your Coner team sets up and

prepares for this evening's programme.

In this series of In Your Coner, we have already been to limb ma vaddy

and -- Limavady and Portadown. The In Your Coner team has already

helped bring some resolution to stories that have been of concern

to you. You have been telling us what you think too. Keep those e-

mails and tweets coming. You can You can follow us on Facebook or

So what is coming up? The hidden world of steroid abuse.

Chris Moore has been finding out how young men who are injecting

steroids are ruining their lives. And is the broadband up to speed

here in Cookstown? We have been talking to folks in the town to

All that is to come. Remember, we're live. This is your chance to

get in touch right now. First, have you a computer? Whether you are

here in Cookstown or in in in Carlloch, listen up. Would you give

a burglar a key to your front door? Probably not. But that's what some

of us are doing without realising. In Your Coner has been examining

the rise in the number of computer scammers, targeting both

individuals and businesses locally. By gaining access to your PCs and

laptops, they are able to download your passwords and bank details. As

I found out, the scammers are I used to think of scammers as Del

Boys, but as with every facet of our our daily lives, scamming has

go online. Scammers can be sitting on different Continents, sitting in

different time zones and they want to rob you blind by pretending they

Sinead, tell me what happened? How did they make contact with you in

terms of the Microsoft scam? Well, they phoned me up one afternoon and

said they were from something Microsoft and they thought that I

had a fewerors on my -- fewerors on my computer and could I switch my

computer on and would I check. They told me what to click on to. Up

came these warning signs and then on came some chap who then warned

me that my computer could crash at any moment which, of course,

worried me. Naturally.

Julia was asked by the polite and professional sounding gentleman to

pay a fee of �280 for fixing her computer which she paid over the

phone using her bank card. The scammer had free access to her

computer and to all the personal details Julia had on it.

It was only later that Julia felt something was not right. I started

to feel very ashamed and guilty and I thought I daren't tell my

daughters. The same company had called me.

Julia's daughter became an online detective for her mum and managed

to track down the company behind the scam. She alerted the bank on

her mum's behalf and managed to get a partial refund of the money that

her mum paid the scammer. I was just so cross that someone

had swindled mum, you know. It made you feel so upset about it. It was

horrible to see mum so upset. We have spoken to several people

across Northern Ireland who have suffered from similar scams, people

ringing them at home and pretending they are from Microsoft and want to

fix the bugs that are slowing up their computer.

Michael Small is a businessman who knows a lot about computers.

So is it a complicated procession? -- process? Not really. They are

trying to convince you that there is something wrong with your

machine. They will direct you to an area called the event viewer and

you can see in the page there that there are hundreds of errors and

warning notices. And that's normal? These are normal

things. They are convincing you there is something serious wrong

with your machine and they say, "Well, we can fix this for a fee."

But what they are really doing is planting software programmes on to

your computer to allow thim to ac-- them to access whatever they want.

And that's what their main aim is. The scammers will direct to you a

website which will allow them to take take control of your computer.

Not only can they access your personal information, but they can

plant software to record what you do on your PC. Bank lens and credit

cards could be set-up in your name without you knowing.

I know what we have set-up is your colleague taking over your computer

and he has full authority to do that, but it is unnervinging and

worrying. It is strange to watch somebody

else having control of your computer screen. He can move the

mouse around and go anywhere he wants. But they will probably do it

in such a way that it is not causing any worry to you. They are

trying to provide a fix for the errors that you saw earlier so you

think everything is normal, but what they are doing is setting this

computer up for use in the future. Frightening.

The Trading Standards office in Belfast tipped us off about this

scam which they say is becoming widespread. All the scammer needs

is a computer and your home telephone number and even

businesses can be targeted too as I discovered when I went to meet

another victim, this time in So this is your business file then?

Yes. With orders and so forth that come through.

Carol Armstrong relies on her computer to run her online business

from home. She had been having problems with the computer when she

got the call. Halfs this guy's -- -- what was

this guy's manner? He seemed amenable and very chatty and so

forth and I suppose in hindsight if I look at t he would have been

insistent and I was just caught in the trap.

The scammer had conned his way on to Carol's computer and charged her

�165. He had access to her files which contain her personal and

business details. I gave them remote access to the computer and

they were working on it for five, or ten minutes or so. I was told at

the time not to touch it, but then everything seemed to stop after a

while. So I sent a message on the computer then, "Are you still

working on it?" I didn't get a reply back.

It dawned on me. We contacted Microsoft to who --

who say they never cold call people at home. If you are unsure about

who is calling you, put the phone That is scary stuff, isn't it? You

have been in touch with us, letting us know it happened to you. Get in

touch with the In Your Coner -- In Your Corner.

Damien, most of us who use computers aren't experts like

Michael in our report there. If someone gets in touch and points

things like that out, we are inclined to fall into the trap,

aren't we? How prevalent is this in in Northern Ireland? It is

incredibly prevalent. The reason it is continuing to operate is it has

been successful and plausible. Even in the last week, we have had ten

complaints from people who have been victims of the scam and that's

likely to be the tip of the iceberg. There is likely to be hundreds, if

not thousands of people out there who don't realise this is a scam,

that they have been caught out, their personal details have been

compromised and they maybe subject to identity fraud or any other scam.

All of those expressions like identity fraud make people nervous.

You have been looking into this and writing about it. Who is behind it?

There is one man in Canada. There is another man in India. I have

their passport photos and the police have this information as

well. They have been running it for about three years and they have a

call centre which is running in India, where there is front-line

staff who do the first call and when someone has been reeled in, it

is passed to back office staff and they are making millions every year.

This is a real professional operation, they are really

sophisticated? They have websites and they will point people to a

website and if the police take the website down and they will put

another one up within The Hour. What about mother and daughter,

Gillian and Heather, is that a result of one person's information

handing on another one if you like or is that sheer chance? It might

look as if it has come from one to the other. It is more likely to be

chance. These people are just working their way through the phone

books. The reason we know this is because there have been people who

have had phone calls and the person they have been asked for is a name

that's in the phone book which might be a misspelling only in the

phone book. They are working through it, but they have called

millions of people. This is very widespread. They are doing it in

all the English speaking countries, not only in Ireland, the UK, they

are doing it in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the whole of

America. 350 million people is their market.

It is clear they don't need to have a high high strike rate if they are

making millions of calls, they get a few people on the hook and get,

how much are they getting out of each person? If you throw the net

far enough, you have catch a lot of people. Many people we have

reported these examples to us, saying I have been called by these

scammers, usually based in call centres, I don't have a computer

and so they hang up. Those that get caught, they are paying anything

from a a few pound to a couple of hundred of pounds.

What's the way to get rid of them? Do you say "I didn't ask you to

call me.". First of all, put the phone down or tell them you are

reporting them to the police. That tends to get them worried fast.

And Trading Standards, what are you doing to tackle this? We we try and

raise awareness, it is difficult to actually investigate and try and

take prosecutions against scammers who are based thousands of miles

away. We try and educate people and give them the tool and the skills

to equip themselves with the knowledge to defeat the scammers.

Well, we have been warned. Thank Each week, you have been telling us

your views on the stories we have been covering and you have been in

touch this evening on Twitter. Stephen says he was told over a

call his computer had a virus. They want me to install a programme.

Norman tweeted to say, "I got my computer locked in a scam wanting

money to unlock T it was a police notice, but a fake scam.". Join the

discussion online. Thank you for The Internet is wonderful, but

sometimes it can not be easy to keep in touch, especially if you

are a Broadband person, reception is not great. We have been on

Cookstown's famous street, a mile and a quarter long and 135 feet

wide, it's the longest and widest street around. Sounds like an ideal

spot to find out how the locals An Ofcom report last summer stated

that Cookstown had the slowest average Broadband speed in the

whole of the UK. In fact, the report said web userss in the Outer

Hebrides in Scotland have better Broadband speeds. In Your Corner is

in the heart of Cookstown to find out if Internet users here are

still operating in the dark ages. Hello, folks. What would you say

about the Broadband speeds here in Cookstown? We don't live in

Cookstown, the Broadband speed is atrocious where we live though.

Really? Very, very low. I can talk about wanting to get Broadband out

there since December 2nd and we haven't got it. You seem frustrated

about that? Very. It means we can't send or receive e-mails. It's awful.

It's nice Cookstown, even has Broadband and electricity, so quite

happy. Must be annoying being at home wants to get on the web, do

some shopping? You can make yourself coffee and have toast

before they would download anything. It depends whereabouts you are and

how close you are to the boxes as well. Some can't get Broadband at

all, they are still on dial-up. I've been with a different Internet

connection. I have a new one which is a bit faster, whether that's

down to the Broadband or the provider, I don't know. I'm really

too old for all this because it's a young person's game. It take mine

five minutes to load. Does it load up, stop and another bit loads up.

What do you think about the Broadband speed? I don't know

really I just use it and whatever is there it's there. It's quite

slow. How does that hinder your every day life? It can hold you

back on transferring stuff and e- mailing. How are you today? Would

you say your Broadband speed is fast or slow? Normal. Normal. Have

you no problems with it at all? at my time of life I've no problems.

Whenever I've been on it, it could be quicker. Is it annoying trying

to log on? No, just have to have a bit of patience. You seem easy-

going so it wouldn't bother you too much? No, it wouldn't.

Each week, our reporter, Chris Moore tackles one of the tougher

storys that the In Your Corner team has been looking at. This week you

have been investigating the worrying rise in the use of illegal

steroids? That's right. Normally associated with performance-

enhancement, today steroid abuse goes well beyond sport or body

building. I've been looking at how young men in Northern Ireland have

been going to extraordinary, possibly deadly lengths in pursuit

of the perfect body. 2012, the year of the London

Olympics and athletes all over the world will have been busy preparing

to make sure they are at peak fitness this summer. But the drug

testers have been and will continue to be vigilant. Here in Northern

Ireland, another group of people have been putting themselves at

risk by taking performance- enhancing drugs, not in the name of

sport, but so that young men can take six-pack bodies on holiday

this summer. Men training for better sporting

fulfilment to push themselves on to new levels of excellence.

Some are prepared to cheat using drugs to succeed. I'm in Ballymena

to meet a former body builder who used steroids in the '70s, but

today through his work as a gym Instructor, he's noticing a change

in the use of steroids. The it's the image enhancing use of steroids

what's most prevalent today. That's the main aspect of steroids

nowadays, image. It's also the image from magazines. Young guys

maybe going on holidays, no-one wants to be the six stone weakling.

For some young men, they'll go there simply to take a course of

steroids because they're going on holiday in a few weeks' time.

and more young men here are injecting steroids. In fact, such

is the marked increase that the needle exchange scheme in Northern

Ireland initially set up for heroin users recently introduced a steroid

pack, specially for steroid users who were using the scheme to get

clean needles. We have seen over the last most recent 12 month

period of all the requests for needles, there's been maybe a

quarter of those come from sports people. There's actually quite a

few thousand people we'd estimate from national studies. In Northern

Ireland, we don't actually know for sure Mau many people there are, but

it could be between one thousand and three thousand if you took the

data from England. -- sure how many. He wants to

reduce the risk of self-harm. The most powerful weapon is his own

tale of pain and suffering. Years of store oid abuse during his body-

building career, Billy's bones collapse and his body's now two

thirds metal. -- steroid. biggest problem was the fact I used

anti-inflammatory steroids for an illance and anabolic steroids. It

started to take the calcium out of my joints and I needed both hips

replaced. Shortly after that, I had both knees replaced and eventually

in 2002, a third of my Spain was replaced and two metal rods all the

way down my spine. It broke my body and for me, it almost cost me my

life. Of course, young men feel

infallible. What happened to Billy will never happen to them. But 32-

year-old Enniskillen man Seamus Warrington died in 2009 after

injecting steroids. His inquest found that continued use of

steroids had caused his heart to increase to twice the average size

for a man whilst narrowing his main coronary arteries.

I've spoken to a man using anabolic steroids but isn't too concerned

about the effect they'll have on his health. He wanted to remain

anonymous. When you first start taking the

steroids, do you have any concerns at all that this might be a harmful

thing for your body? No. Seriously, you didn't have any thoughts on

that? Not really. That's another myth. I mean, you know, cast your

mind across the instance that you have heard of people dying of

steroid abuse, it doesn't really happen very often. It does happen.

It does happen but more people die of alcohol and nicotine every year

than steroids. Steroids wouldn't even rank, it's like smoking or

drinking, if you enjoy it, you are going to continue to do it.

Maybe in the short-term, the effects could appear to be

beneficial, but doctors worry about the long-term.

I'm worried about effects on their cardiac system, even liver faillure,

infertility, psychiatric facts, anger. So there's wide ranging

effects, short-term and long-term. So what motivates young men to risk

their health for image? Low self- esteem, introvert. Go to the gym,

meet a guy with all these muscles and suddenly it clicks and the

steroid thing is a way of almost creating a mask where they're no

longer the weak guy in the corner. For sportsmen and women, the use of

performance-enhancing drugs is something they do in private, the

same for those who use the drugs to make themselves look better, sexier.

So there is a hidden world of steroid use. No-one wants to talk

about it openly. For those who've tried to bring the issue into the

public domain, they've been met with a wall of silence.

It's got to take a multiagency perspective on this. People from

the Health Services, Local Government, education, so a wide

ranging and even the media, a wide ranging amount of agencies. If you

are healthy, no need the take steroids.

Dr Gavin is a sports psychologist at the University of Ulster and

Owen O'Neil is from the public health agency. Owen, you have been

doing some work on this, and you have found out about it all in a

rather interesting way, didn't you? We did. We certainly are aware that

steroid use is increasing and certainly the trend across the

water is certainly that. Whether that replicates here I think is

remaining to be seen. The needles exchange forum, made up of

pharmacists, service users and other drug and alcohol services

working in the field noticed there was an increase in requests for

steroid packs. We developed specific steroid packs in July last

year. In fact we have got one of them here on the table? That's

right. That must be an indication that it's an increasing problem

here? It is. We have looked at the number of packs that have been

distributed through the pharmacy since July. It's 5% of the total

number of packs going out through the exchanges, so it's a small

issue at present. We are certainly taking the issue very seriously.

The other bit of work that we are doing, which was highlighted in the

video link, was around linking in with gyms and the excellent work

that Billy's doing and one of the local community addiction services

in that area distributes packs through Billy to get to the store

oid using comaunt. That's the type of approach we need to promote --

steroid using-community. Gavin, you have been looking at steroid abuse.

What have you found out? Similar to Owen. We are looking at why people

are taking the steroids and we have had increases in anecdotal evidence

from GPs that people are coming to them seeking advice. So at the

University of The sports institute, we are trying to explore why, so

looking at the health beliefs of those individuals whether they're

weightlifters and what sort of things they're doing. Their health

beliefs is behind it. When you see someone like Billy and

what it's done to his body, it's alarming that a young guy would

think this was a good idea just to look good on the beach, wouldn't

it? That's the case what we are faced with. People are looking for

the quick fix and because they are, essentially, they are looking to

take steroids that lead to risky behaviours, at least leading to

health problems. Trying to understand why they go to their GPs

for help. In many cases they don't. Going to their GPs is a last resort

in many cases. It means they are developing certain difficulties or

trying to self-treat or look after themselves via maybe cluster groups

so different groups that have been sharing needles with or they are

going on websites that aren't as reliable. So our study is trying to

really determine what are the factors and he telt beliefs and how

can we try to see to the guys who've been looking for help, how

we can facilitate that further with the help and intervention.

We have been doing research of our own and we got in touch with some

sporting organisations. The IFA and the GAA in Ulster have come back to

us. The IFA said, we take the issue of steroids and illegal performance

enhancing drugs in young people seriously and support any

educational campaign around this or initiative. GAA pretty much the

same, happy to endorse any programme aimed at raising

awareness, the important health and well-being issues have a place in

the community. Is that what you can tap into now, given this stuff is

so available on the Internet? welcome to work with any

organisation. The one thing I would say is that learning from our

experience in terms of addressing heroin misuse, again which is a

hidden problem with very underground groups, the best way to

do that is to target that community, low-key, in a sensitive manner.

That's good to hear. Thank you both of you very much.

Next week, the Health Minister will be on In Your Corner talking about

the provision of muscular dystrophy care across Northern Ireland.

Because of the Bank Holiday, that show will be the only one of the

series not to be live, so contact us now with any questions you would

like Edwin Putts to answer. You have been contacting us tonight. Jo

says I got a call this morning from someone purporting to be from

Microsoft telling me I had problems with my PC and he got very angry

indeed. You can contact the team on e-mail and Facebook and keep the

discussion going online. That is about it from us from