Romance Scam You've Been Scammed



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Tricksters and conmen are trying to take our savings.

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Every year, a shocking 3.2 million people

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fall for their devious and ingenious scams.

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Coming up: the dangers of falling in love over the internet.

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You feel like you've let people down.

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You've let your family down.

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Plus we look at the scourge of scam mail

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and see just how it can devastate someone's life.

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I would gladly have given them everything, just to get my mother back.

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They stole her from me.

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I'm here to tell you what the conman doesn't want you to know.

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How to stay one step ahead of the game and not get scammed.

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If, as the song says, "love is all around"

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then why can it be so hard to find?

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The internet can offer the answer, but scammers have cottoned on to this, and over the last few years,

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the Serious Organised Crime Agency, SOCA,

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have seen a big rise in online romance scams.

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This is a tens of millions of pounds'

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problem for the United Kingdom.

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Very typically, what happens is somebody will be either contacted

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either because they've gone on to a website

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a dating site, a lonely hearts site, something like that,

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and they'll be contacted by somebody who will start to befriend them.

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But it's not just dating websites that are used by scammers

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to close in on potential targets.

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Social networking sites used to just be

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for the technologically savvy.

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But not any more. They're for everyone. And that includes scam artists.

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Your hobbies, your beliefs, your interests,

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they're all things that a scam artist can use

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to build up a picture of their next target.

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32-year-old Marie is single, and had just started looking into internet dating when,

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out of the blue, a man calling himself Nelson contacted her on Facebook.

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-Hiya!

-Marie?

-Ooh, hello! Who's that?

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-That's Penny.

-Is she OK out?

-Yeah. Penny!

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Come on, we've got to hear a story, Penny.

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Just a general message, saying what his name was

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and he was a US soldier

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and he just noticed me and thought he'd like to start chatting to me.

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And if I was interested.

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Nelson told Marie he was an American soldier serving at their army base in Nigeria.

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What Marie didn't know was that he was a sophisticated scam artist

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and that she was well and truly in his sights.

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They often say "I'm in the army." Often the American army.

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When scouting for targets, conmen are looking for the chinks in somebody's armour.

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Something to exploit. Personal information on sites such as Facebook

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gives them all they need to establish common ground with their victims.

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What information did you put on Facebook? What was available for people to see?

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He could see that I was single and a Christian.

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That was probably the main thing and the two main things he used.

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They seem like two fairly harmless pieces of information, but to the scammer it was what he needed.

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As the pair began exchanging messages, he said he was also a Christian

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and even quoted passages from the Bible, all music to Marie's ears.

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How quickly did things move?

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It went so quickly. Things happened really fast.

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When it's a scam, they rapidly fall in love with you.

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They rapidly want to meet you.

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These are the warning signs to look for.

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It's not a natural progression of any sort of relationship which has started like that.

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Nelson certainly wasn't playing hard to get.

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He quickly moved out of the confines of the internet, chatting to Marie on the phone.

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Can you describe how he'd speak to you?

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You're speaking to supposedly an American. How did he sound?

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When I spoke to him, he sounded American.

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There was a second accent which freaked me out a bit.

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It sounded a bit Spanish.

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But he said his mother was Mexican and his father was American.

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Not unusual for me. My mother's French, my father's British, I'm South African.

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So that wasn't unusual or weird.

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So I just went, "Oh, OK." I didn't question it.

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Smitten, Marie was being sucked in fast.

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The time for Nelson to get down to business.

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They will invariably ask for some sort of financial assistance.

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Maybe straight up for money. They might ask for money to help with a visa.

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It might be, "Can you send me £30 to charge my mobile phone so that I can ring you?"

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But it escalates.

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Sure enough, following the scammer's text book to a T,

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Nelson caught Marie off-guard one day.

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He said he was really down.

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That he and fellow soldiers were unable to get into their bank accounts

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and that Marie could sort this out if she could just send him some money.

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I kind of could see where it was headed

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so I tried to divert as much as I could by saying,

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"The army can't leave you guys without being able to access your money.

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"They should give you money."

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"No, they're not. You don't understand. We're in the middle of a war zone here."

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Trust was a big issue in our conversations that he kept bringing up.

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"You've got to trust me." "Don't you trust me?"

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"Why don't you trust me?"

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I felt like I was backed in a corner. I was badly financially off.

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I thought, "What do I do?

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I can't leave him."

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Eventually, Marie caved in and sent £100 for Nelson to pick up

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through the Western Union cash transfer service.

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I thought, "Right, this will be it."

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If I didn't hear from him again, after this money, then I knew

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that that's what it was.

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So, in a weird way, you sending him money was a test of your trust in him?

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Yes, that's exactly how I'd describe it to someone.

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Nelson now had Marie where he wanted her.

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With the promise of more money, he wasn't going anywhere. He called back, full of gratitude.

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Marie started to believe that this was the real deal.

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I told my mum. For the first time in any relationship I've ever had,

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she was excited. I think my mum wanted to believe this was happening.

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It had happened for my parents.

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They were engaged within three weeks and have been married for 35 years.

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So you looked at your parents' relationship and thought,

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-"It's not so crazy, because it worked for them."

-Yeah.

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Another week went by. Nelson decided it was time to ramp up this scam.

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He told Marie he wanted to come and see her.

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But there was one teeny-weeny catch.

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He asked Marie to send £700 to pay for his plane ticket.

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This was crunch time.

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I said, "I haven't got that kind of money. I just don't."

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"You need to understand it's a lot of money.

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"I'm worried and scared about sending this kind of money."

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So I stopped direct debits. I stopped any action in or out of my bank account.

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I stopped everything.

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I went and drew the money out. Went down to Western Union,

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Even the lady at Western Union said to me,

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"Are you OK with sending this?" And I went, "I'm not.

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"I'm not OK with it. It's a lot of money."

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And then I thought, he'll do a runner, surely after that.

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But he didn't. He was still there.

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And he got closer to booking. Said he'd booked his ticket.

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To prove his commitment, Nelson even sent through

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a supposed confirmation of his flight details.

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But in an unbelievably cruel trick

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used by scammers to raise the stakes,

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Marie received some shocking news.

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I got a text message at 11 o'clock at night

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to say that he'd been in a really bad accident

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and that he was in critical condition.

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That's a massive shock.

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I couldn't talk.

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I was just frantically trying to get the internet up

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to get phone numbers for this Nigerian hospital to ring

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and trying to find numbers for the American army

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and I was just frantic.

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When she finally got hold of them,

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the American army gave her the hard facts.

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They had no record of her soldier Nelson.

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He simply didn't exist.

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Marie was starting to realise she'd been tricked.

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But the people behind this elaborate scam weren't about to give up.

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Sometimes these people will say, "Yes, I'm sorry about that,

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"it was a fraud and I'm not that American soldier.

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"I am this person but I'm very poor.

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But actually, I do really love you."

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And they say, "See - he really does like me."

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And you think, "Please, don't do this! That's not right."

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A man calling himself Paul and claiming to be Nelson's doctor in the critical care ward,

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started sending texts to Marie throughout the night.

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When he rang in the morning, she heard a familiar voice at the end of the line.

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I recognised the guy's voice

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to be like a Mexican accent,

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but no American accent.

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Yes, it was our conman, still trying it on.

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Still pretending to be a doctor,

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he emailed asking for money to help with treatment costs.

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But for Marie, the penny had well and truly dropped.

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There was no doctor.

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And there wasn't, and never had been, a soldier called Nelson who loved her.

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Marie was conned out of £800, but she's not alone.

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Others have been stung for much higher amounts by romance scams.

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We have had a victim that's lost

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nearly a quarter of a million pounds.

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The real perpetrators can be anywhere.

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They are sitting at the end of a laptop plugged into a Wi-Fi system.

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We have managed to devise methods where we can intercept

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the links between the criminal and victim.

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½But for the victims of these robbing Romeos, such as Marie,

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it's the emotional cost rather than the money that's hardest to bear.

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You feel like you've let people down.

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You've let your family down.

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When my mum found out, she was devastated.

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And she...

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-Sorry.

-Marie, you haven't done anything wrong. You know that?

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All you've done is trust somebody

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because their business, and it's a horrible, cruel business,

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is to gain people's trust

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because they're very good at it.

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He was!

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And you're so lovely!

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There's no reason why you shouldn't have a great fella

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at some point. This is nothing to do with that. You know?

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It's all right.

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So how can you avoid being suckered into the world of romance scams?

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The first thing I say to anybody in anything like this,

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I would say, number one, "Don't send any money."

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It may sound obvious, but no matter how much these people tug at your heartstrings,

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how much it feels like a real connection, they only want one thing.

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Secondly, never give your own details out.

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That means mobile phone number, address and email.

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Also check your privacy settings when using sites like Facebook.

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Many dating websites actually look for scams,

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but they only see what's happening on their own site.

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So be wary if someone wants to chat elsewhere. To repeat...

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Third, don't send any money.

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I know it was number one, but it's that important!

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No. No!

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Junk mail!

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I mean, it may be annoying, but mostly it's harmless.

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But then there's scam mail, completely different.

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In one year in the UK alone,

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we got scammed out of £3.5 billion thanks to scam mail.

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And this is how it typically works.

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A letter comes through the door with exciting news you've won a huge cash prize.

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The letter suggests all you need to do is pay a small fee and you'll receive your winnings.

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So you pay the fee but your cash prize never comes.

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Instead, the scammers will just send you more and more letters.

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Scam mail, or mass marketing fraud as it's also known,

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is often targeted at elderly people.

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The effects can be all-consuming.

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These shocking images were filmed by Marilyn Baldwin.

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Her mother Jessica was tormented by scam mail for five years.

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This distressing footage shows her in the grip of the scam.

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She received a letter telling her she'd won a competition.

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All she had to do to claim it was send off a small fee.

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and basically she got bombarded with scam mail.

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The scam mail started to increase

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until probably about a year down the line,

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or maybe not even that, she was getting around 30 pieces a day.

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The house started filling up with scam mail. It was everywhere -

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cupboards, drawers, the shed.

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Under the bed. Everywhere.

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Marilyn wanted people to see this footage

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to show the devastating impact scam mail can have.

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We tried to stop her and explained that this mail wasn't genuine.

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But she just couldn't see it. It was almost like they'd trapped her.

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She was in this fictitious world that they'd created with the mail.

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She'd got this air about her that, "I've won the money and it's just

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"a matter of time before it comes."

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She actually thought she was rich, in a strange way,

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even though she hadn't received anything.

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Jessica remained under the spell of the scam artists

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until just before she died in 2007.

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When my mum was going through this I would have gladly given them the house, everything.

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They could have taken everything, just to get my mother back.

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They stole her from me.

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At the time of her mother's problem, Marilyn didn't know who to turn to.

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Suspecting the issue was far more widespread than being reported, she started the Think Jessica campaign.

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She's helped to set up events across the country to let people know.

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These criminals are sneaking in through the letterbox.

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There are elderly people behind closed doors

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being attacked and being mugged every day.

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Mass marketing fraud is a nationwide problem.

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In Portsmouth, Trading Standards Officers Laura Small and Holly Shelbourne

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recently seized a huge haul of scam mail which they're now trying to wade through.

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These two boxes here are completely unsorted mail.

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The other boxes are sorted into categories.

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Sifting through the mail revealed the devious methods used to

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relieve people of their cash.

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It's been checked and verified by the NLC disbursement officer.

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So there is a sense of authority,

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you don't think that is someone you shouldn't trust.

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Anything that you open, you think, oh, I have won!

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A prize certificate,

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so straightaway you get this mind-dazzling amount of money,

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£7 million.

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-Your name is in lights.

-Most of them will be time-deadlined as well, so "urgent".

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"You've got four days to reply."

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It takes away your thought processes and you are more likely

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to react quite quickly and not consult with your friends or family.

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You know, just clever. Really, really clever.

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All these boxes were found in one private house

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belonging to a pensioner called Mrs Knox.

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When it comes to mass marketing scams, most of our victims are socially isolated.

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Unfortunately, they don't have friends or family visiting every day.

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It's just carers come to see them. That's when they fall through the net.

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They can't check with anybody to make sure they're not replying to things they shouldn't be.

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When Laura and Holly first visited Mrs Knox's home,

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they were stunned at what they saw.

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As soon as we walked into the house, you couldn't get in the hallway

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because they were all to the right-hand side.

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She could no longer get her shopping trolley down there, which is her walking aid.

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I've never won anything in my life, and the fact that I was told I'd won something,

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I thought, "Oh, great! It's going to help me out of a mess."

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-So you were in need of the money, weren't you?

-I was in need of it.

-Yes.

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They said to me something about you've won so much money.

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"If you send a bit to cover the costs of dealing with it,

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-"we'll send you your money."

-OK.

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Unfortunately they didn't, not unless they used invisible cheques, because I never saw them!

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Oh, dear!

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It's estimated that in the past few years,

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Mrs Knox has given away £2,000 to the scammers.

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I've got my pension and nothing else.

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To think I chucked away the money when I badly needed it...

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I'm a right sucker that way!

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Fortunately, Laura and Holly have got to Mrs Knox

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in time to make a difference.

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To solve Mrs Knox' scam mail problem,

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we signed her to the Mail Preference Service and Telephone Preference Service.

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They are like filtering systems that help filter through the junk mail

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that comes through and junk telephone calls as well.

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The thing about investigating it is finding out where they're from

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and who are sending the mailings.

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There are many different perpetrators.

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They don't all come from one person. There are thousands of companies.

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Some of the letters sent to Jessica and to Mrs Knox

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were blatant examples of illegal scam mail.

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But it's not always so clear cut.

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There are companies that send out mass marketing letters that use clever wording and small print

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to try and stay on the right side of the law.

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In 2009, a lady called Doreen was sent this letter

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by a firm called UK Incentives and Promotions Ltd.

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At first glance, it could have given the impression

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that she'd won £625,000,

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by using words like confirmed, guaranteed and sole recipient.

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But on closer inspection, the letter was simply inviting Doreen to enter a prize draw

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and there was no guarantee of winning anything.

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Doreen decided to report it to East Sussex Trading Standards Officer Tom Cook.

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What made you report this to us in the first place?

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Quite honestly, it was too good to be true.

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What about this? Here it says they've been conducting a nationwide search

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and you have been identified. Lucky you(!)

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It's not a mistake. You are confirmed and guaranteed to receive £625,000.

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To enter the prize, Doreen had to buy a £20 watch.

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She wasn't the sort of person to be taken in by this kind of misleading marketing.

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But she was reporting it to us because she was concerned

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about other people receiving a letter and falling for it and would be misled.

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And Tom agreed. He thought the letter was highly deceptive

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and designed to confuse people into buying the £20 watch.

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He began investigating and found that unlike many mass-marketing firms

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who are based abroad, UK Incentives and Promotions Ltd were in Stockport near Manchester.

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We contacted the local Trading Standards.

0:21:090:21:12

They had been in contact with the company.

0:21:120:21:15

But they had not been able to prevent a second wave of letters being sent out.

0:21:150:21:20

The company had already been warned about the wording of their letters

0:21:200:21:26

and although they'd made some changes, the mail was still highly misleading.

0:21:260:21:30

Tom decided he'd try to get them in court.

0:21:300:21:33

But weeks into the investigation, the company went into liquidation,

0:21:340:21:39

owing £280,000 - mostly to the tax man.

0:21:390:21:44

The company was our initial target, if you like.

0:21:440:21:48

They disappeared, so we were left with going after individuals.

0:21:480:21:54

Tom continued pursuing two of the key figures involved with the business,

0:21:540:21:58

the company director and the marketing manager.

0:21:580:22:01

He wrote letters to the two of them asking them to stop sending out misleading and deceptive mail.

0:22:010:22:06

The company director replied and agreed to Tom's demands.

0:22:060:22:09

What we hadn't got was the marketing manager. He hadn't responded in a similar way.

0:22:110:22:17

So he had not, at this point, told us he'd stop dealing with this type of letter.

0:22:170:22:23

So in November 2009 they took the marketing manager to court and won.

0:22:230:22:28

He was told to sign a general undertaking that he would stop sending out misleading material

0:22:280:22:33

for a minimum of one year.

0:22:330:22:35

It was Doreen's original complaint about the company's scam letter

0:22:350:22:39

that sparked the investigation.

0:22:390:22:41

Well done, Doreen!

0:22:410:22:42

If she'd replied, this is what her £20 would have got her.

0:22:420:22:46

-There.

-Oh, dear!

-That is what they were selling you.

0:22:460:22:49

With the size of my bone structure, I'd be lucky if it went round my wrist!

0:22:490:22:54

It's not a particularly nice watch.

0:22:540:22:56

Tom also gives her the good news.

0:22:560:22:59

This is the outcome. They've given a promise to the court

0:22:590:23:03

that they will obey the law, and they understand if they don't,

0:23:030:23:07

they could go to prison.

0:23:070:23:09

We asked representatives of UK Incentives and Promotions Ltd

0:23:090:23:14

to comment, and this is what their former marketing manager had to say.

0:23:140:23:18

The types of letters received by Jessica and Mrs Knox from foreign countries were deceptive.

0:23:350:23:40

Some could amount to fraud.

0:23:400:23:43

This is being taken ever more seriously.

0:23:430:23:46

The Metropolitan Police has set up a special unit, Operation Sterling,

0:23:460:23:49

to deal solely with this type of crime,

0:23:490:23:52

both at home and abroad.

0:23:520:23:53

It is difficult, but it's not impossible.

0:23:530:23:57

We're working with law enforcement agencies throughout the world

0:23:570:24:01

and also postal providers throughout the world

0:24:010:24:05

and we're having significant successes.

0:24:050:24:07

Earlier this year, we undertook some enforcement activity

0:24:070:24:11

which had a major impact reducing some of those letters to victims

0:24:110:24:17

by two-thirds.

0:24:170:24:19

It's a very long road.

0:24:190:24:21

We've turned a corner, but we're not at the end of the road.

0:24:210:24:24

This needs to be ongoing.

0:24:240:24:26

For more information about the Mail and Telephone Preference Service, and advice about scams, go to:

0:24:260:24:36

Scammers are constantly coming up with new and clever ways to get at our cash.

0:24:410:24:47

So it's important to know what are the latest scams out there

0:24:470:24:51

that could affect you.

0:24:510:24:52

Today, we're looking at scams where conmen pretend to be from a government department.

0:24:520:24:59

Cheeky little tinkers!

0:24:590:25:00

We've got fraud reports from people pretending to be from HMRC, Ministry of Justice officials.

0:25:040:25:10

One scam we've seen is saying that you're a model citizen

0:25:100:25:13

and you're to be rewarded

0:25:130:25:15

for the good life you're living.

0:25:150:25:17

I've always said that.

0:25:170:25:18

As a result, you're entitled to a £500 reward for your good service.

0:25:180:25:23

-About right.

-"We can secure this. We're acting on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

0:25:230:25:30

"Please pay us £50 now and we will send you this money you're entitled to."

0:25:300:25:37

However nice you are, there is no such thing as a good citizen award

0:25:370:25:41

or any other award from the Ministry of Justice.

0:25:410:25:44

Maybe there should be, but there isn't. Sorry, it's a scam.

0:25:440:25:47

-HMRC, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

-Yes.

0:25:470:25:51

How does that scam work?

0:25:510:25:53

The same principles. They are saying you've overpaid your taxes.

0:25:530:25:57

"We have looked into this

0:25:570:25:59

"and we've determined that you're entitled to a tax rebate of £5,000.

0:25:590:26:06

"All we need is an administration fee."

0:26:060:26:08

Anyone who's ever had any dealings with HMRC

0:26:080:26:11

will know you don't get anything genuinely from them.

0:26:110:26:14

Again, it would be wrong to say you don't get things back.

0:26:140:26:19

There are accountants who get money back for people and individuals get money back.

0:26:190:26:25

We can all overpay our taxes. But the point is,

0:26:250:26:29

HMRC deal with you directly. They don't do it through an agent.

0:26:290:26:33

And they certainly don't ask for fees in advance.

0:26:330:26:37

If you are entitled to a refund,

0:26:370:26:40

HMRC will never call or email you.

0:26:400:26:42

They'll notify you with an official letter through the post.

0:26:420:26:46

You can be sure that conmen and fraudsters

0:26:470:26:49

will keep coming up with new and sophisticated ways of getting your cash.

0:26:490:26:53

But armed with a bit of knowledge, you can stay one step ahead.

0:26:530:26:57

Stay safe. See you next time.

0:26:570:26:59

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