Scam Mail You've Been Scammed

Millions of us are targeted in scams every year,

and whether it comes in the form of an e-mail,

a cold call or a knock at the door, they're all designed to do

one thing and one thing only, to get you to part with your cash.

Coming up, how one woman's addiction to scam mail

almost cost her her home and her family.

I couldn't stop. I thought, "I'm missing out on something

"if I don't open this letter.

"It might be the one with the cheque in."

And the real-life Walter Mitty whose fraudulent exploits were

the stuff of Hollywood movies.

The lies that were coming out of his mouth were unbelievable.

Everybody who was involved was fooled by him.

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

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

Most scams work on their targets

when they're at a moment of weakness,

when something has happened which will make them

behave in a way that they wouldn't do otherwise.

Mailshot scams are no different.

They go out in their millions

through letterboxes across the country,

hoping to find someone who, just once, will respond.

Scams of this kind come in many shapes and sizes,

but organisations such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency

refer to them as mass marketing fraud.

The most common types of mass marketing fraud are romance fraud,

lottery fraud, inheritance fraud,

horoscopes, and then any combination of those.

But they all have two things in common.

They arrive through your letterbox, delivered by the postman,

and they have one sole aim, to get at your cash.

Over three million people in the UK fall victim

to mass marketing fraud every year.

Some get wise to the scam before parting with too much money,

but other, more vulnerable victims are sucked into a vicious cycle,

which can go on for years, with devastating results.

I'm about to meet a woman who's been receiving scam mail for a decade,

and it cost her and her family very dear indeed.

All the little boats.

76-year-old June from Torquay became embroiled

in the world of scam mail after a family tragedy.

She and daughter Liz have been through a terrible time,

but they've agreed to share their story to warn others about

the effects scam mail can have on people

who are at their most vulnerable.

-Hello!

-Hello!

-You must be Liz.

-Yes. Come on in.

-Thank you very much.

Tell me about life with your family. How is it?

What would you say?

We've been through a difficult time because, obviously,

Mum lost her eldest daughter, Salma, in a drowning incident,

which has, sort of, rocked the family.

-When was that?

-That was ten years ago, 2001.

And it was the most horrendous day of my life. I'll never forget it.

Following her daughter's death, June sank into a deep depression.

You know, it's a horrible shock, to have someone taken from you

-so quickly.

-Mm hmm.

-How did you try and cope with that?

Do you know? I just went in my shell.

I just didn't go out. I never went anywhere.

I stayed home all the time with my husband.

And it was at this moment, when she was at her lowest ebb, that

the scam mail started to arrive through June's letterbox.

I started getting letters from clairvoyants from all over the place.

They were coming from America, even, to this address.

Initially sceptical, June didn't respond to the letters,

but then something arrived which caught her attention.

The lottery. The lottery was one of them. The Australian lottery.

And there was massive amounts of money...

to be won.

This particular wording often includes things like,

"This is your lucky day"

and, "You have been chosen."

"You are the selected person." Of course, you're not.

You're one of about 10,000 that were selected to see

if you will fall for it.

Her daughter's death had left June at rock bottom,

and she suddenly thought she saw something that could make

a huge difference to her and her family.

So she started replying to the lottery letters.

Can you tell me the first piece of paper that came

through your door that you responded to?

Their motto is to play the lottery

with the amount of money that you feel comfortable with.

"Play only for fun." Which, I thought, that was all right.

And that started me off.

Older, elderly victims are more often likely to send off some money

to start with because they think it's a right thing.

June began by sending small amounts of around £20

to be entered into a prize draw.

But once she'd sent off one lot of money,

the fraudsters wanted more,

another 20 or £30 to enter her into the next stage of the draw.

And now that she'd replied to the scammers, the floodgates opened.

The victim, once they've made the initial response,

will start to get more letters.

They will get tens, hundreds of letters a week

because the fraudster will sell on those names to another fraudster

because they're a person who will respond.

Within a very short space of time,

June started to receive scam lottery letters from Spain,

Australia, Canada, America.

And she began to devote all her time

to opening them and reading them.

My husband used to get annoyed.

"Are you still on with that?" I said, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."

And it would take me all day.

In my experience, this type of offence can get to people

to the extent where it takes over their lives.

When I'd get there, she'd probably still be in her dressing gown

and opening the post.

I'd notice in drawers and cupboards, when I was putting clothes away,

piles of letters.

The letters promised one of two things.

Either June had already won a large cash prize,

and all she had to do to receive it was send off a payment order

of 20 or £30,

or she'd been exclusively selected to enter a prize draw

worth millions of pounds, and she simply had to send off an entry fee.

June was quickly being sucked into an addictive cycle

of responding to these letters.

And as the weeks, months and then years went by,

she began sending off hundreds and then thousands of pounds.

How many credit card slips would you be filling in?

I would do about four a day.

For an average amount of how much, would you say?

£20.

So you could be spending, on average, about £80 a day?

The scammers even convinced June to set up a monthly direct debit,

so that she could be entered automatically

into lottery prize draws.

And June didn't have this money to spend.

She was receiving just £296 a month in a state pension,

and she was spending this, and some of her husband's pension,

to play the so-called lottery.

I even sold my jewellery. I sold all sorts of things to get money...

to put on and bet on the lottery.

By this point, several years had gone by

and June's family were becoming increasingly concerned.

My daughter was objecting to me spending so much money

and she was trying to tell me this was a scam and not to do it.

And my grandson too.

He got involved and said, "Grandma, are you doing these things again?"

I said, "Yes."

He took all the mail and tore it all up in front of me

and threw it on the floor and jumped on it.

But June was under the spell of the scam letters,

and like many people who are targeted this way,

she didn't want to hear what her loved ones were saying.

Victims who continually send money away to these sort of mailings,

are what we see as chronic victims.

And quite often, even when they are told, look, this is not real,

they carry on doing it.

And June's refusal to listen began to have a damaging effect

on her relationship with her daughter.

Tell me what happened when you confronted your mum about the...

She wasn't happy. She was very angry.

She would say, I'm putting the evil eye on her games

and she'll never win with an attitude like that towards it.

Why did you ignore them and carry on?

I don't know, just something inside me wanted to achieve this.

The loss of daughter Selma, had left June with a hole in her life,

one she was filling with scam mail.

And the conmen needed no encouragement to keep sending it.

There is a genuine need here just to talk to somebody.

And getting all of those letters was,

whilst we might look at them and think,

"This is a load of fraudulent mail, it is a load of rubbish."

To them it's contact with the outside world.

Sensing June's vulnerability, the scammers began to call her and send her gifts.

They will be on the phone asking you about your private life.

They will even send you flowers, a box of chocolates.

All of this is a grooming process to gain your confidence.

Recently I got a card from a girl who was leaving, one of the lottery people.

And she sent me a little package containing some soaps...

..nuts and chocolates and...

-So the idea there is this is...

-As a gift.

-But this is like a friendship now?

-Yeah, yeah.

The scammers had now manipulated June so much,

she began hiding things from her family.

I would sneak the mail and hide it somewhere else.

And when they went I would sneak out, open it up and read it.

And play some more.

And it went on like that for years.

At her wits end, Liz decided to take matters into her own hands.

She began to withdraw her dad's pension

and pay her parents' bills herself.

And to stop the direct debits, she closed her mum's bank account and opened another one.

But this didn't stop June paying over the phone,

or withdrawing cash to send in the post.

Without a doubt there is some sort of addiction here.

I don't see it any different to gambling, alcoholism.

It is an addiction and people need help.

I couldn't stop, I couldn't stop, I thought I was missing out on something

if I don't open this letter.

It might be the one with the cheque in and blah, blah, blah.

And I was fooling myself.

June had now been responding to scam mail for ten years.

And Liz was becoming increasingly desperate.

Then she discovered a website called, Think Jessica,

which told stories of people in exactly the same situation as June.

It had been set up by Marilyn Baldwin, after her mother, Jessica,

became addicted to scam mail.

We tried to stop her,

we tried to explain to her that this mail wasn't genuine.

But she just couldn't see it, it was almost like they had trapped her.

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

Marilyn wanted people to see this footage to show

the devastating impact scam mail can have.

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

she hadn't received anything.

Jessica remained under the spell of the scam artists

until just before she died in 2007.

I think when my mum was going through this,

I would have quite gladly given them the house and everything,

they could have taken everything just to get my mother back.

They stole her from me.

Since her mother's death, Marilyn has campaign to raise

awareness of the problem and help others in the same situation.

And for Liz, the website was proof she and her mum weren't alone.

I read it, everything to you and we sat and cried.

Yeah, it had an impact on me when I read that.

When Elizabeth read it out to me.

And I thought, that's me, I'm getting myself into such a muddle with life.

And I've got to do something.

And these shook me up and made me see reason.

Finally, the penny seemed to have dropped.

Over a ten-year period,

June had ploughed over £100,000 into fraudulent lottery schemes,

and at last, she was able to see the damage that had been done.

I could have bought a house.

What do you make of that figure?

Well, it's disgusting, isn't it, really?

I mean...I'm on a pension and I spent all my pension on that.

Most of my dad's pension too, and savings I'd had, and jewellery.

With Liz's help, June has now taken steps to stop scam mail.

I've stopped looking at the mail.

I just get rid of it in the bin.

You've changed your bank details.

Yeah, I've changed the bank details.

-Been to the bank and we've stopped all the cards.

-Yeah.

She was using a number of...

And I leave Elizabeth to handle the affairs,

the bills that need paying, so I don't handle any money...

..or credit cards.

That must be very hard for you to take, though?

When you have been so independent.

Yeah. Well, it is, it's difficult.

But that's the only way I can do it.

I think you're really lucky,

you have a very close family who are there for you.

-And, you know, at this point...

-I am.

..you know, they've been able to step in and help.

I am grateful, grateful to my daughter and my son

and my grandson and my husband.

All of them.

June has managed to kick scam mail out of her life before it was

too late, but there are others out there who are not so lucky.

How can you avoid falling victim to mass-marketing lottery scams?

On this type of fraud, it doesn't exist.

Never answer a letter, never send an upfront fee, and look after

the elderly and vulnerable to make sure that they are not

becoming a victim to this.

And if it does happen, report it to Action Fraud.

June has lost a huge sum of money,

but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

She has stopped paying attention

to all the rubbish that comes through her letterbox.

It could have ripped her family wide apart.

But it isn't going to now,

and that's all because of a bit of tough love from her daughter, Liz.

These days, most scam artists like to target people using e-mail,

the phone, or the mailbox.

But there are those who still like to do it

the old-fashioned way, face-to-face.

And tales of what they get up to

can read like the plot of a Hollywood movie.

This story is about a man called George Schouten,

a Walter Mitty type character,

who created a series of fantasy lifestyles and alter egos,

in order to perpetrate some truly outrageous scams.

Mr Schouten, without doubt, is probably the most eccentric character

I've met, the lies that have come out of his mouth were unbelievable.

I don't think George Schouten could lie straight in bed.

In April 2008, Thames Valley Police began receiving

complaints about Schouten from people involved in showjumping.

PC Stuart Keys was on secondment to CID at the time

and was charged with investigating the case.

As more victims are coming forward,

I felt that obviously we had a big fraudster on our hands here.

One of the first people to contact PC Keys was Patrick Riley,

who runs a company which makes physiotherapy equipment for horses.

Patrick had been contacted by George Schouten,

who said he was the son of the multi-millionaire owner of

computer giant IBM and that he was setting up an IBM showjumping team.

He had lots of cash on him, a good-looking woman on his arm,

drove then at that time, I think he was in an Audi Q7 4x4.

Nice clothes, etc. Played the part, perfectly.

Schouten told Patrick he wanted to order some equipment for the

IBM team, which to Patrick sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime.

The thought of being involved with somebody the size of IBM

was fantastic. We thought all our dreams come true.

Schouten put in an order £62,500 worth of equipment, which Patrick

and his wife delivered in person on the agreement

he would pay for it by bank transfer within 30 days.

I thought the golden goose had laid its egg, I thought we had

the opportunity now to make a lot of money with some decent clients.

But the payment date came and went and the money didn't materialise.

When the 30 days had expired,

Excuses started to come out as to why the money hadn't been paid.

"My father said this, my father said that, the lawyers are involved,

"it's in a trust fund," all this kind of rubbish.

It was at this point that we really started to know that

something wasn't quite right with this guy.

Patrick contacted the police

and they quickly discovered that George Schouten had previous.

In 2003, he had been jailed for 18 months for obtaining

services by deception in a Catch Me If You Can style scam

involving the world of aviation.

He contacted an airline company, wishing to buy a helicopter.

He turned up wearing an air pilot's uniform,

claiming he was a pilot for a prince in Dubai.

He also claimed to be a qualified neurosurgeon,

and said he was setting up his own airline.

Schouten came here to Farnborough Airspace and hired out a warehouse.

Even hired staff to work on his new airline, including a secretary,

who was promised a salary of £58,000, and a pilot who was

promised £180,000 if he gave up his job and came to work for Schouten.

Needless to say, the jobs didn't exist.

The aviation company were never paid and Schouten's claims that he

was a helicopter-flying neurosurgeon were exposed as lies.

Now, five years later, it seemed Schouten

was up to his old tricks again.

As the police investigated, they discovered that he had set up

a showjumping team, which had competed at various events.

But when they called IBM to make sure he was who he said he was,

they were in for a surprise.

IBM told me that Mr Schouten

has no connections whatsoever with their company

and they wished to have any items with the IBM logo on to be destroyed.

This was the bombshell Patrick didn't want to receive.

He believed he was going into business with a global

technology giant, who could bankroll his business

and provide fantastic advertising for years to come.

It turned out now it was all a pack of lies.

We felt we'd had our pants pulled down in public, kind of thing.

A bit embarrassed.

George Schouten was living out a fantasy lifestyle,

playing the role of the son of a multi-millionaire businessman

with a love of showjumping.

Mr Schouten had flamboyant sports cars, Hummers, Porsches,

giving off this impression that he was a wealthy sort of person.

Unbeknown to the people that he was in connection with,

everything was rented.

Schouten was living the dream, without paying the bills.

Patrick Riley wasn't the only person that he had deceived.

The second person was responsible for embroidering items of clothing

or equipment used in the horse-riding world.

Mr Schouten said if they could provide clothing etc for the horses

and riders, with the IBM logo,

they'd be paid thousands of pounds worth of sponsorship deals.

He had also managed to deceive a well-known horse trainer

and he had persuaded a star British rider to join his showjumping team.

They'd all been taken in by this highly accomplished conman.

But once Patrick Riley knew about Schouten's criminal past,

he decided to take matters into his own hands.

The main thing we wanted to do was ensure we got our money back,

or our equipment back, because it was quite a substantial amount.

Patrick Riley instructed a debt collection company to go

round to Schouten's house and pick up his equipment.

George wasn't in at the time,

but it transpired that the equipment was in the garage and the chaps were

allowed into the garage, seized the equipment and brought it back to us.

But Patrick was still owed £5,000 by Schouten for goods

he hadn't paid for, and the other victims between them

had lost around £27,000 in unpaid goods and services.

So, PC Keys now had ample evidence to bring

George Schouten in for a formal interview.

And surprise, surprise, at first,

it seemed the fraudster had an answer for everything.

When asked why he had claimed to be the son of the owner of IBM...

Mr Schouten stated that he hadn't told anyone that he had

any connections whatsoever with IBM

and just said that he was going to use them as a potential sponsorship.

And when asked why he had put in a large order

for equipment from Patrick Riley and then not paid for it...

Mr Schouten admitted to borrowing equipment from Mr Riley,

but stated he returned that equipment,

never placed a second order and there was never anything else outstanding.

But the police weren't buying any of it.

During the interview, Mr Schouten was becoming agitated.

I could tell he was being backed into a corner.

He knew the evidence against him

was such that these guys were all telling the truth.

And a search of Mr Schouten's home provided the police with more

evidence that backed up the victims' claims.

I found items such as baseball caps, jackets, horse blankets,

all with the IBM logo printed on them.

As well as various paperwork.

The police now had what they needed

to take serious action against George Schouten.

Whilst in police custody, Mr Schouten was charged with three counts

of fraud, bailed to attend Reading Crown Court in July 2010.

Although he paid his victims back the money he owed them,

Schouten still had to answer for his crimes.

And in the dock, he pleaded guilty.

He was then bailed to appear at Reading Crown Court

one month later for his sentencing.

But on the day of the sentencing, Schouten didn't turn up.

He went down to the south coast, hired a boat

and absconded to France, which is the last known sighting of Mr Schouten.

This Catch Me If You Can conman had managed to

evade his captors at the final hour and sail off into the sunset.

George Schouten was sentenced in his absence to 27 months.

If he is caught, he will be sent straight to prison.

We'd very much like to find Mr Schouten, locate him

and bring him back to England so he can serve his prison sentence.

So if anyone has got any information on his whereabouts,

please contact Thames Valley Police and let us locate this man.

Before we go,

there's just time to tell you about some of the latest scams out there.

I've come to meet an expert from the Citizens Advice Bureau

to get the lowdown on what you should be looking out for.

Today, we're looking at a scam targeting those looking for property.

Landlord scams can be really cruel, because they don't just

take your money, they can deprive you of a place to live.

So, how does this scam work?

The difficulty is, you can't always see

the place that you're hoping to live.

Maybe you live abroad and you're coming to work in the UK,

or you're moving to the other end of the country

and you need there to be accommodation when you get there.

So, what's really going on here?

The scam works because you are making a payment upfront.

But these are just phantom flats, they don't exist,

or if they do exist, there is somebody already living there.

And presumably, if the landlord does it to one

set of potential tenants, he can do it to 100.

And you wouldn't know,

because you're looking for this place online, you're not going to

an office where you are meeting other people or anything like that.

Be wary of handing over upfront fees for a property you haven't seen.

For extra peace of mind, you can also see

if your agent is part of the Safe Agent Scheme.

Fraudsters will forever be coming up

with new ways to get you to part with your cash.

But armed with a little bit of knowledge,

you can be one step ahead of them.

Stay safe. I'll see you next time.

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