Home Study Scam You've Been Scammed

Every year con men and scam artists net an estimated �3.5 billion from

you and I, the British public. They don't care how they do it and or

how much damage they cause. They only really care about one thing -

Coming up, a further education college whose bogus qualifications

can teach you a very harsh lesson. I have got a piece of paper

upstairs, certificates that mean nothing. Would you pay �1,000 for

certificate that is mean nothing? The property investment that left

innocent people high and dry. It makes me really angry that these

people are so arrogant. They feel that they can get away with this.

If they can spend people's money who have been saving all their

lives. I'm here to tell you what the con

men doesn't want you to know and how to stay ahead of the game and

The cost of a full-time university education can be crippling and if

you add to that, the time you will need for lectures and seminars, for

those of us with jobs and children, it can be a no, no. That's why home

study makes such sense. Learning from home is big business

and thanks to the internet you can now do anything from a diploma to a

degree without leaving your front room. Sadly the con men have been

doing their homework too and they have worked out how to scam people

out of cash that they thought was buying them knowledge.

There is a number of fraudulent operations that we've come across.

One in particular was an overseas university which was offering bogus

qualifications in effect. Scammers will either make up

official sounding courses to fool people or offer rock niced

qualifications that -- recognised qualifications that count for

nothing. It can be a minefield, but one some of us have to enter as

home study is offered to help those who can't afford the time or the

money for a more traditional course. Caroline is trying to move on with

her life after studying for over 15 years for what she believed to be a

set of diplomas that would change her future..

. What I was looking for was a way that I could study whilst being a

full-time mum and whilst working full-time that I could get the

qualifications that I wanted to basically build my self-confidence.

Caroline had been having a tough time and was a working single

mother taking temporary secretarial jobs to make ends meet. She was the

type of person that the home study scammers hoped to lure in.

There are a number of reasons why scammers can exploit our industry.

There are vulnerable people within that. Those people that are looking

to change jobs or are in a job that they are not enjoying. It is easy

for that person to fall foul of the scammer.

Caroline wanted to study psychology and she found a company that seemed

to fit the bill. I decided I would give them a call

to find more about it. I spoke to a very nice young lady who told me

what to expect and I thought, "This sounds great." Just because you

have had phone contact with one or many people at one of these

fraudulent operations, it is really important not to let your guard

down. These fraudulent people would have many people answering the

phone when you call to make themselves look as genuine as

possible. Once on the phone, the scammers

have you where they want you. They will tell you what you want to hear

as they attempt to hook you on to one of their courses.

Some companies will make up qualifications which sound

important by giving you letters that you can put after your name. A

check with that industry, you will find those letters don't exist.

What about the kind of qualifications that they were

offering? Did they say what it was that you would be walking away at

the end of it? I was looking at doing a diploma and psychology and

psychotherapy and they told me it would be equivalent to a diploma.

It wasn't affiliated to? No. They did mention at the time ibg an Open

University if you did a diploma through them, it would be the same

qualification as that and they were recognised by companies.

Ah, equivalent to. Surely one of the scammers favourite phrases, but

Caroline was persuaded. Handing over �200 she started working hard

on what she thought was a genuine diploma.

The study programmes look legitimate, but they have taken the

course information from somewhere else because they are not

registered with a professional body, these courses are worthless.

Caroline, how did it work in practise? You get a series of photo

copied pages put together in a binder. Each section, they ask you

a question or you get a series of questions which you have to answer

based on what you've you've read. I was looking to get highest mark

possible. Another sign of the scam course is

high grades. Happy pupils ask pure questions.

I always got an A. It is not like you can converse with other

students or speak to anybody else to find out how they are dsmght you

are on -- doing. You are on your own.

Caroline had been given the name of her tutor, but when she did need to

ask him something, he seemed hard to get hold of.

A few times, you know, when I asked to speak to my tutor, they were

either not available or I would get told they would send me an e-mail

later. Almost as if he had to read up on

something. On several occasions I would get e-

mails back, but they didn't quite answer the question that I was

asking so whether they didn't understand what I was saying, I

don't know. Caroline finished her so-called

diploma course, passing with flying colours. Receiving a shiny

certificate in the post, she happily went on with life with a

great sense of achievement after her success, but scammers are never

one to let profitable targets vanish.

There is an encouragement particularly with the fraudulent

companies to get to you do more and more courses. To keep you hooked in

their organisation. To get more and more money out of you.

Time passed, but the con men e- mailed Caroline again. As she

hadn't rumbled their scam first time around, they decided to come

back for more. They were operating under a different name, but the

tutor was the same and Caroline was interested in what they had to

offer. Did they say that it might lead to

professional status of any sort? Yes, they did.

So they gave you assurances that you would be walking out with

something that would be professionally valid and would

allow to you practise what you wanted to do? Yes.

Sucked in by the sales pitch, Caroline, at a cost of a further

�800, signed up for four more courses in psychology.

She knew these could take a long time to complete, but hoped at the

end of it all, she she would be qualified enough to have a job in

the subject. I I have had this feeling that's

the job I should be in because I had the interest.

How would you use it? Setting up my own business and helping other

people that have problems. Are you a motivated person? Yes.

When you set your mind to something, generally you get it done.

Car Caroline was patient and didn't want a radical career change until

her son was grown-up. She studied whenever she could grab a moment,

progressing through the courses she believed would transform her later

life. When was the moment when you really

started to think, "I'm really not sure about what I have been

spending all this time and money on." Was there one moment of

realisation? Yes. 2009 when I started doing my last course which

was for a marking tutor which they sent to me and asked me to do.

There was a job offer. So you have ascended to the level

where you can be judging other people as well? Yes.

But the dangling carrot was about to be snatched away and Caroline

was set to learn a very harsh lesson.

I finished the first section. Set it back. -- sent it back. Sent the

various e-mails because I hadn't received anything back. The next

thing I know is I get an e-mail to say they are moving offices. The

phone number has changed and alarm bells start to ring and then when

after a few weeks I still hadn't got anything back and I'm sending

snotty e-mails and saying, "Look what is going on here?" Because I

had paid for the course in full. Then the company's website website

shut down and a message appeared saying they had gone into

receivership, Caroline checked other review sites and found other

people were having the same problems.

As soon as I read things like, "Scam. This is a joke." It started

to sink in. What exactly, what were you working

out at that stage? Well, it was the fact that I had spent so much time,

money and effort trying to build a better life for myself and I just

felt cheated. Take your time. It's fine.

The unbearable truth was the courses that Caroline had been

studying for since 1994 were worthless, a waste of her time and

money. You know I paid for something that I haven't got. You

know, I have got a piece of paper upstairs, certificates, that mean

nothing. Would you pay for �1,000 for

certificate that is mean nothing? I don't think anybody would.

Sadly, many others have. Caught out by crooks selling bogus home study

courses online. I feel that the organisations that operate these

scams are really tainting the home learning and distance learning

industry. It is a very good industry and people do get an awful

lot from it, but there is a small minority which are operating in

this scam. What's Worse four, the money you

left or the 15 years? The 15 years. You know, I mean, my life is

brilliant at the minute, you know and I have sorted myself out and

I've sort of worked around t around my feelings about the whole thing

to a certain extent and I'm determined I'm not going to let it

ruin my life, but the 15 years that I was doing all that work, you know,

for me to come away with nothing, you know, I don't know how anybody

is supposed to feel about that. But it is the fact that it is 15

years of what? You know, I couldn't even explain

to my husband how it made me feel. And it has happened to thousands of

other people, you know that? Yes. It is cold comfort, but I think to

take advantage of people's desire to better themselves, you know, I

think that's pretty despicable. Yeah.

Caroline will never get back the years she spent studying, but she

is still fight to go try and retrieve some of her money. The

authorities are working hard to catch these con men and in 2004

Caroline's tutor was prosecuted and fined under the Education Reform

Act for awarding a fake doctor doctor ate in psychology to another

woman. He was qualified in animal welfare,

Egypt tolling, you name it, he is qualified in it.

Are you saying he couldn't have had these qualifications so he had

none? Who has? Home study provides a valuable and

cost effective service for many. How can you spot the scam artists

and tell apart the descent degrees from the dodgy diplomas? They are

registered with Companies House and as a basic check. It is wise to

check how long the company has been trading for. The longer it has been

established, the less chance of it being a scam.

Other thing that people can do is look online and Google and use

search engines. There is a lot of of forums out there where people

discuss scams. The other thing that is very important, is if they

contact us, the British Institute for Learning and Development, we

can see if they are registered with us and any exams they offer are

registered with an exam board. companies that offer training

should be registered with a professional body. If you have

already completed a course and received a certificate, check

whether it is official. I expect to see an examination

board logo on there as well and I think that's the most important

thing that people can look for and they can go and check with the exam

board or with people like ourselves and find out if that course is a

genuine course. The reason why I wanted to tell my

story was basically so that other people are aware of what's going on

and nobody else gets caught out in the same way that I did and if I

can at least stop one person from getting caught out with this

horrible scam then at least I feel If you have got a bit of spare

money to invest, there are a few different options you can consider.

You could stick it into a bank account, but you might not make

very much. You could put it into stocks and shares, but they can go

down as well as up. Then there is property. A tempting proposition

especially buy-to-let. But a decade ago, in the north-east,

one group of con men turned a buy- to-let investment scheme into one

of the largest property scams ever seen in Britain. They were the

subject of a mammoth investigation by the Northumbrian Police and the

Serious Fraud Office. Targeting hundreds of of investors, the

fraudulent company, Practical Property Portfolios Limited left

many people's dreams and lives in ruins.

It makes me really angry that these people are so arrogant, they feel

they can get away with this. If they could spend people's money

that they have been saving all their lives.

The seeds of the scam were sown in 2000 when the UK was gripped by

property fever. The one at that time was following

what effectively was a global property boom. There was a lot of

money around, banks were happy to lend. People were happy to invest

generally in property because it was perceived as an investment that

couldn't go wrong. If you bought a property, it it didn't matter where

it was, it was always going to go up. The impression was if you were

a landlord, you were going to make money.

With prices rising across the UK, Newcastle and the north-east of

England were emerging as the perfect place for buy-to-let

investment. Just the potential, you could sense

that something was happening in the area. A lot of young professionals

coming in. A lot of new students. There was a lot of new businesses

with fresh ideas coming to the area and a shortage of houses that were

geared for them. One of the companies to try and

capitalise on the north-east boom was Practical Property Portfolios

Limited or PPP who sold buy-to-let properties for �25,000. Many of the

properties they sold have now been renovated or demolished, but these

houses in the same area provide an area of what PPP were offering.

Investors were sold run-down houses and PPP promised to renovate them.

Kay Rogers from the Serious Fraud Office saw how people were drawn in.

For an investor, having received the entire amount of the investment

upfront, the investor was promised the purchase of the property, the

refurbishment of the property to a tenantable standard. That tenants

would be found and would be managed, the rent collected, the property

would be insured and crucially in this particular one, that void

period insurance would be purchased. When there was no tenant occupying

the property and paying rent that the insurance would cover the rent.

So this one gave investors the impression that they couldn't lose.

But you could and in the end nearly 2,000 people did as victims of such

a cruel scam, many of them are ashamed of their involvement and

unwilling to talk. The people PPPP succeeded in roping into their

scheme were mainly quiet, first time investors like Nancy Lewis.

Nancy first got in touch with PPP in 2003 and her son Ed recalls how

excited she was by what they were offering.

She was very fond of the north-east. She had been a student at the

University of Durham and she had a good time up there. And soy think

she was looking at an investment which she felt could put something

back into an area that she was fond As PPP promised to buy houses in

slightly run-down places and refurbish, Nancy felt not only that

it would be a wise investment, but she would be helping with the

regeneration of whole areas. She was of retirement age and she

had money which she saved up over the years and she was looking to do

something with that. I think my mother wanted to invest her money

wisely. Obviously to build that money up to pass on to myself and

my sisters in time. I believe she became aware of PPP

through either a friend telling her about the investment opportunity,

but also they had, I believe, advertised through the national

press. She believed it was a legitimate business and she thought

it was a really good and clever idea.

So much so, that she handed over �50,000 to PPP so they could buy

her two properties. And many other people ploughed in greater amounts.

During in boom time, Practical Property Portfolios Limited were

taking full advantage of the interest shown in the north-east by

outside investors. 90% came from outside the area.

have been sophisticated in the way they they seduced the investor. If

you replied to one of their adverts in a national newspaper, you would

be sent a glossy pro pro sure and an invitation to see the scheme

first hand as Detective Mark Woods was to find out, it was a slick

operation. You made your initial inquiry to

PPP, you would be collected at the station or the airport by a

salesman who would pick you up in one of the company Jaguars, you

were taken to an area which was usually Hartlepool and you were

three properties, all similar properties. There There would be a

property as PP said they bought it. There was one as they bought it and

one refurbishment and one at the end. These were the properties that

people who invested in PPP thought they would end up.

This is what people thought they would get once the renovations were

completed and a tenant was in place. Rental incomes varied, but in

effect, they were expecting to to receive somewhere in the region of

about �100 a week. So you paid a cheap price for a

property that would be renovated and quickly grow in value, while at

the same time providing affordable housing for people who needed it

and they would pay you rent. It seemed like a win, win win

situation and PPP enticed up to 2,000 investors in total. In

reality, all was not what it seemed. After three years the whole thing

was about to come crashing down. The Northumbrian Police first got

wind that something was not right when Mark received a call from a

disgruntled investor. They were an overseas investor and

they had relatives in the the Gateshead area. They came home and

saw what they bought and weren't happy. Basically what they thought

they hadn't got. They thought they bought a property that was being to

be refurbished and tenanted, but they purchased a boarded up

property in a down run area. Mark contacted Trading Standards

and local housing associations to find they started receiving

complaints from worried investors who were beginning to realise that

their their vemplts weren't as -- investments weren't as sound as

they believed. Nahns Nancy Lewis was among them.

As soon as she made the investment, it was difficult to get hold of

anyone specific. She tried to phone them and was passed from certain

departments to other departments. When no reasonal money came in --

rental money came and no answers from the company, she went to see

the houses for herself and what greeted her were empty boarded up

properties like this one in the same area.

She was, of course, shocked at the state of them. This is money that

had been saved up by my mother over her lifetime, taken a long time to

save and then once it was gone, it was upset. When I found out it was

a scam, it was very frustrating. I felt quite angry about it. I think

she felt rather foolish, frustrated, upset, stressed about the whole

whole situation. And outside investors who had not

seen their properties were finding out what they had spent their money

I contacted a guy that lived in the Bristol area. He some property in

South Yorkshire which on speaking to him, he thought he had a

terraced property, which was tenanted and double glazed. Imagine

his surprise when I told him that there was no roof, it had a car

half in and half out of the back kitchen and the house was in a

state of devastation. During the period when the investor

owned it there was an incident reported and when the investor went

to see it, they found that it was completely burnt out.

PPP had been buying streets of run- down properties like this one for

investors and doing nothing with them. This affected whole

communities nearby who weren't involved with their scheme.

It is bad bad enough areas where there is nobody living there, when

you have got people who lived in these areas for years, they end up

living in a bomb site. If PPP weren't spending investors

money on renovating properties, where had the money gone. As this

was a criminal matter, Mark was determined to find out.

He seemed to enjoy being the centre of attention. He described him as

not the richest man in the north- east.

He pays his staff very well, but for want of a better word expects

his pound of flesh and is There are scams out there for every

one of us. It doesn't matter how old you are, what you do, where you

live. There is one that's tailor- made for you. The point is this -

how do you recognise a scam and how do you avoid falling into their

traps? We have spoken to some of the UK's

leading authorities on fraud to build up a picture of what type of

person falls for what type of scam and we have created fictional

Today's character is a young lad looking for work and like many

people in the UK, he is using the internet to help.

When people are applying to jobs online they can be vulnerable

depending on how urgently they need to find employment.

That makes our job hunting youth the prime target for the dream job

scam. Here is how it works and why.

Our young chap puts his CV on a number of online job websites,

advertising his background and credentials as a future employee,

but little does he know, he is handing valuable information to

scammers as well. He made himself vulnerable by doing

something perfectly sensible and legitimate by putting his CV on a

website. The scammer can get hold him and field him a line because of

his skills and because of where he is in his life. He has dealt them

the cards in some sense. He may also have included crucial

personal information such as his date of birth, national insurance

number and address in a bid to land a job fast. So our young lad is

making it easy for the scammers to assess his suitability.

So one day, he gets a telephone call. It is really like a phone

interview and the job sounds attractive, it involves a lot of

travelling. It involves the sorts of skills that he has got, you know,

really by the end of this conversation which came out of the

blue he is feeling that this is a job he had he would really like and

he is feeling good about himself because they took the trouble to

contact. Our chap is desperate. Wooed by the

sudden and exciting offer, he has been caught off guard. He hasn't

stopped to think about the fact that attractive jobs rarely come

out of the blue and he hasn't questioned the fact that he was

cold called. Having missed all the marks of the

scam, our lad is unwitting put himself in a seriously vunnable

vulnerable situation. The next day, or a few days later

our victim gets another call and what she says is, "Congratulations,

you have got the job." She goes into more detail about what we have

got to do and the first thing is to have a placement in some exotic

foreign country, one he has never been to before and unfortunately,

the firm can't get him his visa, but they can manage all the

processing for him if he can just send them the �200 or �500 or

whatever it is, the sort of scale that someone in his position would

be able to put their hands on, though not easily and he is never

going to see it again. So our chap has has innocently

handed over whatever cash he has in a bid to get on with his life and

the fraudsters have probably sold his details on to other scamming

websites. So keen was he to gain independence, he has done what many

young people risk doing. He has put too many personal details on job

websites. He has been fooled with the promise of an exciting career.

He has paid upfront fees on the back of a cold call. So if you or

anyone close to you is in a similar situation, this is what you need to

know: Reputable companies have advice on

their website about security and. If you are in doubt about an advert

that you wish to apply for, you can contact the service provider that's

advertising the job. Think about your preferences and settings on

your profile that you have online. You can choose to keep your e-mail

and phone numbers confidential from recruiters.

Remember, scams are designed to target people of all ages and

backgrounds so stay on your guard and hopefully you won't be their

The early noughties and UK property is booming with little sign of bust.

It was in this economy that that prk that PC PC that a company

company pulled off a scam. PPP had been promising investors for

�25,000, they would buy them a run- down property, do it up and rent it

out on their behalf. After a tip- off, Detective Mark Woods

investigated and found they weren't honouring their promises. This

house here is probably typically of a house that PPP would buy for an

investor. As soon as they bought the house this is what they ended

up, a house that was boarded up and derelict. The vandals have gone in.

It would remain like this because they didn't have the money to do

the refurbishments. You get two or three houses like this, and the

area comes into decline and you are left with a shell.

Where was investors money going? With the help of the Department of

Trade and Industry, the police forced PPP to stop trading and

conducted a series of raids on the offices and homes of senior staff.

From our point of view, it is important that we seize everything

as soon as practicable. We didn't want to lose anything.

Searching through the company records and seeing how many people

had been taken in, Mark realised he needed help.

As a force, it was the largest fraud inquiry that the force has

taken on. We didn't have the resources, we referred it down to

the Serious Fraud Office and they came on board and basically ran the

operation in conjunction with ourselves.

Put in charge of the case, Kay Rogers at the SFO was taken aback

by the size of the fraud. I have not come across another case

where we had so many individuals who were actually victims to such a

large degree. There was In secretaries in excess of 1700

victims and they paid to the company what appeared to be a total

of �80 million. As the police drove around the

country, interviewing victims, they found this was not a case of the

rich robbing the rich, many of those caught out were ordinary

people. It wasn't just a case of investors

losing money and they are losing money by investors can be a

calculated risk by them, this was people's livelihoods and life

savings and it was tragic to see what happened to them and the

effect it has on them. That's probably the thing that will stick

with me most. Many of the victims of this scam

were left too crushed and embarrassed to talk about their

involvement. Nancy Lewis was tricked into paying PPP �50,000 for

two properties that turned out to be worth far less when she saw the

state they were in. It sounded like a really good

scheme because it was look to go put something back into the area

through regeneration. She had saved that money over a long period of

time. It was precious to her. It was pretty much all the savings

that she had. She put that wholeheartedly into something she

believed in. There was a puzzle to solve. PPP

had been running this scam for three years, yet it was only now it

had been discovered. Although most of their investors lived away from

the area, how had they got away with it for so long? Police

interviews can company employees and an examination of the accounts

would provide the answer. To start with, the scheme was

perfectly viable, however it became far more difficult to identify

properties that were of a sufficient quality that could be

refurbished and tenanted as envisaged by the scheme. That

didn't deter the company. They continued to sell because they were

so enthralled by the amount of money coming in and it was the fact

that the properties would cost a lot more money to refurbish that

really undermined the whole scheme. They weren't prepared to spend the

money. P PPP tried to cover their tracks

in a pyramid scheme. Money from new investors was used to pay the rents

to existing ones. And that's what keeps pulling in the new investors

because the earlier investors see it as a successful investment.

rental income was put in their bank account from the PPP account. Those

people didn't know what they had until the company went under so

they came back to these houses thinking, "OK, I have got to look

after the house myself. I have a tenant that I'm receiving an income

and found this.". When they were closed down, PPP had around 100

employees, most of whom had no idea the company was rotten to the core.

Rooting out who the real bad guys were and bringing them to justice

was a major challenge for the Serious Fraud Office.

We interviewed over 300 victims so we talked to them about the

investment that they made, their contact with the defendants and we

looked at the documents that they retained so that was able to show

us was who they had spoken to and how they were misled and the

information that they were given that persuaded them to invest in

this scheme. From the company itself, PPP, the liquid dator gave

us the records and that amounted to 600 archive boxes which is a huge

volume of material to have to read through, to analyse and to assess

its relevance. With so many victims and pieces of

evidence to wade through, it was a complicated case, but four years

later in 2007, the SFO were finally ready to prosecute.

We charged five people. Those five people were app all

directors of the company and crucially they all attended board

meetings where they discussed the situation. They all knew there was

less than 40% of the properties tenanted. They knew there was not

enough money spent on refurbishments and they were

generously paid, far more so that could be justified by the income

that the company generated. While they left nearly 2,000 people

to pick up the pieces, the directors had been living it up, in

particular company boss, John Potts who had. A nice big housepm Luxury

items. Fine art. He He liked expensive

suits. He seemed to enjoy being the centre of air tension and he --

attention. He Jaguar which he was renovated. He ruled his

organisation with an iron fist. There is two sides to Mr Potts,

there is the side that you can meet and he is affable and there is a

side when necessary charge of staff which is -- when he is in charge of

staff. We found him quite bullying and inTim daght and pays --

intimidating and pays his staff well, but expects his pound of

flesh, but is an intimidating man. But his chickens were about to come

home to roost. On the eve of their trial in early 2009, the fraudulent

five decided to plead guilty. It didn't need anybody standing up

in court and trying to explain that to a jury, it really meant that

anybody looking at the results of all that work that we had done, it

was clear they were guilty. All the directors received prison

sentences and John Potts was jailed for five years.

The SFO haven't stopped there. To claw back money for investors, they

have begun a process of digging out any loop the crooks may have buried.

We need to look at the assets they have acquired. Sometimes trace them

through shell companies and other nominee owners, particularly where

it comes to property and shares and sometimes things are hidden really

effectively so we have to do a major tracing exercise.

One thing is for sure, John Potts is no longer the richest man in the

north-east and that's some comfort to the hundreds of people conned in

this massive scam, including Ed, whose mother Nancy handed over

�50,000 to PPP. It makes me really angry that that these people were

so arrogant, they feel they can get away with this. If they can spend

people's money that they have been saving all their lives, that no one

would do anything about it. I'm delighted that they have been put

behind bars. They deserve it. They are scumbags, these people. They

have got no conscience. Nancy died in 2008, but before she

did, she was able to recoup her losses and help the area by doing

up her PPP houses. She came out of this with her her

head held high. She She managed to achieve something and I'm really

proud of her for that. Before I go today, I want to know

some of the latest scams out there now, I will be speaking to an

expert from the National Fraud Authority on what to watch out for.

Utilities, they are straightforward, they give you what you need to live

and you pay the the bills. Surely you can't get scammed.

Unfortunately as technology moves on, for instance with the

electricity companies, we have prepayment meters with a card that

you insert that gives you the credit. Unfortunately the

fraudsters have got hold of this and they are scamming the poorest

in our society again. How does that work? They are

calling door to door and selling you a card to get free electricity.

The card is either bogus or the money that has been used to top it

up has been topped up using a stolen or cloned credit card. When

the payment for that card bounces, the card doesn't work.

You are charged by the utility company for the electricity that

you have used that hasn't been paid for. So you end up paying twice?

You pay pay twice. An electricity company will never

sell you any payment card on the door, even if the amount on the

card looks tempting, remember it is stolen money and you will end up

paying twice. OK, so if I get a message from my

utility, utility company company saying there is money waiting for

you, what's the reality behind that? You will contact them. You

will phone them. There could be a premium rate phone number involved

in which case it it costs you a lot of money to get nowhere in an

information stream. When you phone up, you will be put on hold and

after two or three minutes, having spoken to no one, when you hang up,

you will find that that phone call has cost you a lot of money. That

is one scenario. The other sin scenario is they will ask you for a

fee to facilitate the France fer of the funds that -- transfers of

funds that never arrive. Refunds do happen, but a utility

company will never ask for a fee to process one. Any refund will be

taken off a future bill. Someone telling you different? Well, don't

believe them. Con men will keep coming up with