Builders/Inveiglers Scam 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 a conman exploited the trust of a pensioner...

I suppose I just thought he was... you know, doing a good thing for me.

..and the £1.5 million property fraud foiled by a police sting.

I thought, "Wow, this is really going to happen."

"These guys are actually just round the corner now."

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.

It's good to have friends.

Old friends, new friends.

But when those friends come cold calling, knocking at your door,

pointing out work that may or may not need doing

for which they're going to charge you a fortune,

those are friends you don't need.

Builders like this, if you can even call them builders,

are known to the authorities as "cold callers".

But the scam isn't always as simple as turning up,

doing some shoddy work and then running off with your money.

There are darker, more sinister fraudsters who target the elderly

and those who are more isolated or vulnerable.

What starts out as a bit of building work can lead to people

being systematically stripped of their savings.

Trading Standards' opinion on cold calling builders is,

you shouldn't entertain them at your doorstep.

We've seen cases where the effect on the victim emotionally

has been devastating,

and it can seriously affect the longevity of their lives.

It's called inveigling - worming your way into someone's home

and then their heart,

and it's happened to the woman I'm about to meet.

Christine, known as Chris, is a pensioner from Kent

and she first came into contact with cold calling builders

over a decade ago.

Since then, they have taken both her money and her confidence.

-Hi.

-Hello there, Chris. How are you?

-I'm very well, thank you. How are you?

-I'm very well.

-Lovely to see you. Please come in.

-You too. Thank you.

'Chris lives alone in her house in Kent.'

Can I ask you about your family situation?

Yes. I have two nephews, one of whom I'm very close to.

I always say he's the son I never had.

So you've got people nearby?

Yes. I don't see a lot of them, you see.

I'm very independent, and I always have been.

And it's good to be independent.

But, unfortunately for Chris,

it also made her an attractive target for the conmen.

They'll be looking at people who live alone, who are a bit older.

The victim is usually a white female in her seventies.

The seeds of this scam were sown over a decade ago

when Chris paid some builders to paint the outside of her home.

It started out with a knock on her front door.

They said, "If you like,

"we can paint the outside of your bungalow for you."

Cos they said it was guaranteed for seven years.

But seven years later, as if by magic,

there was another knock at the door,

and the builders were back.

They came to the door and said, "Your guarantee's up.

"Would you like us to repaint it?"

This is a common way of the first step,

first approach into what can often be a long-term scam.

They might say, "We did some work for you ten years ago,

"your guarantee's come to an end.

"We've come to check up on it."

And, conveniently enough,

they even happened to have the right materials.

"We've got some magnolia left over from another job,

"so if you agree that we can start now...

"..we will do it."

And guess what?

If Chris acted quickly, it even came with a discount.

One of the reasons for offering discounted prices,

and we've got the materials here and now is,

they don't want to give the victim any chance to think about it,

to get a second opinion or maybe to consult with a neighbour

or a friend or family.

I didn't refer it to any of my family,

I just did it on my own, did my own thing.

And the scammers did their own thing, too.

Once Chris had agreed to the paint job,

there were suddenly all sorts of other jobs that needed doing.

It's part of the whole scam.

Move around the property, pick on something else and say,

"This needs doing. We can do it now. We're here now, let's crack on."

And again, no opportunity to think about it,

no opportunity to get a second opinion.

-So they painted the house in the first place?

-Yes, yes.

Then what?

They did at one point say...

That's the chimney stack I share with next door,

and he said that is very dangerous

because as anybody walks past it wobbles.

He said, "Would you like us to take it down for you?" so I did.

Chris was now being carefully reeled in.

She agreed to the extra works and was invoiced for a whopping £10,000,

which she paid for out of her life savings.

The job was completed in just three days.

In other words, three grand a day.

That's very nice work if you can get it.

The builders packed up their stuff and left,

but a month later, they were back.

Often, once you are...

persuaded to have some work done by a cold caller,

then they'll come back and try something else some time later.

This time, a smartly dressed young man turned up at Chris's home.

He held out his hand and said, "You probably don't remember me."

Which was true, I didn't, really.

The man told Chris he was from the same company

as the first set of builders she had in just weeks before.

He talked really quickly and turned on the charm.

Tell me about him, how he carried himself.

Well, he was always in a suit.

And when he arrived...

I mean, I arrived today, you made me a lovely cup of tea.

Anybody that comes through your front door, I would imagine,

-gets a cup of tea.

-Yeah.

Well, not quite, but almost.

Straight away, the young man started talking shop,

and it wasn't long before Chris was persuaded to pay

for a long list of minor works with a major price tag.

Once again, the bill came to an enormous £10,000,

and Chris dipped into her rapidly dwindling life savings to pay it.

Over the following weeks, the man went on a huge charm offensive,

visiting Chris on a daily basis

and phoning her regularly to check in and suggest more work.

The reason is, I think, to befriend them,

to encourage them to trust them,

and to make it harder to say no.

How can you say no to a friend?

How was that relationship between you and him? How did that work?

It was my fault. I always do it with workmen.

I make a friend of them.

There are times when I'm very lonely,

and he'd come and have a cup of tea,

and he told me a lot about his girlfriend.

His girlfriend had dumped him.

And I swear there were tears in his eyes

while he was talking to me about it.

I mean, all this business of ringing me up every evening

and asking me what kind of a day I'd had and whether I was well,

-and suchlike, was all soft soap, wasn't it?

-Mmm.

Chris can say this now with the benefit of hindsight,

but at the time she thought he was helping her out.

It's typical of this type of scam, where they'll abuse their position

to the extent that they'll convince the victim

that whatever they say goes.

I suppose I just thought he was, you know,

doing a good thing for me, you know,

to see things that needed doing and offering to do them for me.

Saving me a job in the future, perhaps.

Believing that the young man

genuinely had her interests at heart,

Chris agreed to yet more works on his recommendation.

There was damp in the garage, so the roof needed fixing -

£9,500.

The loft needed new felt and repairs to the firewall -

£11,000.

Most of this work wasn't necessary,

but over a period of just a few weeks

Chris was persuaded to hand over an astronomical £35,000.

She exhausted her savings

and had to take out a bank loan to cover the costs.

It seems to me that you were aware quite early

that maybe the sums of money they were talking about weren't right.

Yeah, I wasn't happy about it for quite some time.

I think they were here about six weeks,

and about halfway through, I wasn't happy with it,

but I felt as though I'd dug myself into a hole

that I couldn't get out of.

Sometimes they worry about saying no,

either because there's this friendship,

or because they're just concerned about saying no

and fearful of the consequences.

There's a fear there of, obviously,

what could happen if you confront them.

Yes. I don't think I expected them to be violent or anything like that.

Not physically violent,

but I thought they might be verbally insulting or violent,

or something like that.

The victims won't report it to the authorities.

They won't report it to friends or family.

This is because they think they've been stupid, they've been foolish,

they're concerned that their family might not think

that they're independent enough to look after themselves any more.

-Cos you've got friends.

-Yes, I know.

You've got people you can call on.

Yes, I know, but I'm independent.

Always have been, you see.

I got to the stage where I wasn't happy,

but I didn't know what to do about it, you see.

Although worried, Chris was being put under huge pressure

by the conmen and now agreed to have her patio spray cleaned

and sealed for £3,800 -

money she simply didn't have.

She told herself this was the last job she would agree to,

as she wanted the builders gone.

But they had other ideas.

The victim feels, "If I get this one done

"and agree to this last piece of work, maybe that'll be it,

"then they won't find anything else."

And then they'll try something else, and they'll keep trying it on.

The last thing they wanted to do was retile my roof.

I went to the bank because I owed them £3,000,

and I hadn't got £3,000,

because I'd already borrowed 25,000 from the bank.

And I said, "Can I borrow another 3,000?"

And they said, "Enough is enough," and called in Trading Standards,

and the rest is history.

Finally, somebody had intervened on Chris's behalf.

Bromley Trading Standards started looking into her case.

How much in total did you lose?

55,000.

Sorry, I'm getting a bit emotional.

And, um...

It must have been dreadful.

It was, because I've been very ill afterwards.

I've had psychiatric treatment and God knows what since,

and I'm still seeing a psychiatrist now.

Can you describe the effect it had on you afterwards?

Very, very deep depression.

I wasn't suicidal...

..but I was very, very deeply depressed.

And I'm still taking antidepressants now.

There is some positive news for Chris.

A joint investigation by Trading Standards, Scambusters

and Bromley Police identified the men behind this scam as Ruben Reed

and his sons, Ruben Junior and George or Georgie -

the man in the suit who Chris had thought was her friend.

It was a business relationship which was one-sided.

The three men had scammed hundreds of thousands of pounds

from multiple victims, most of whom were elderly or vulnerable.

All three were found guilty of fraud

and Ruben Reed Senior was jailed for three years

and ordered to pay £150,000 in compensation.

Sons Ruben and George got suspended sentences

and were also ordered to pay compensation.

But for Chris, who has to come to terms with the cruel way

in which she was scammed, this is small comfort.

I'm a great plonker, but you know that, don't you?

I don't think you're a great plonker at all.

I can look at what's happened to you and I can see

exactly why it's happened, because you are a very independent woman.

-Yes.

-And you have been all the way through your life.

-Yes.

-And suddenly, along come these guys...

Well, the may... I mean, I'm not unintelligent.

I'm not stupid, but they made me feel such a twerp,

because I trusted them and believed in them.

And that was... I think that's what made me so ill,

because I just thought, you know,

"How could you be so stupid?"

I've got to say, Christine,

I meet lots of people to whom exactly the same thing's happened.

Oh, well, that's not quite so bad then, yeah.

The money is terrible, but the way it's affected you...

Oh, yeah. That's the worst thing, really, yeah.

So what are Trading Standards' top tips

for avoiding cold calling con men?

Get another quote. Get at least three quotes,

and then you can see how much these things cost.

Shop around to avoid getting conned.

Often you need to ask yourself, "Do I need to have the work done?

"Is it necessary? Is it falling down?"

Often it's not.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The best way to avoid being ripped off like this

is simply to stand your ground at your front door

and say no.

Con artists don't just target people like you and me.

Sometimes, in order to raise the stakes,

they take it to a whole new level.

In 2010, a gang of fraudsters targeted a finance company

in what was to be a truly audacious scam.

These CCTV stills show the moment when police swept in

to arrest a gang posing as Arab businessmen,

just at the moment when they were trying to pull off

a £1.5 million scam.

We had plain clothes officers ready,

about 10 officers, to attend the location,

and we had the support group,

which are uniformed officers who are in hand

just in case anything doesn't go to plan.

The sting was planned with military precision

because the police got just one chance to catch the conmen.

If you don't catch them on the height of doing it,

you will not be able to get them at all.

These arrests were the culmination of an investigation

that had begun just a week earlier,

when the City of London Police had been called in

by a finance company called Masthaven.

The Masthaven director contacted the fraud desk

and informed us of a suspected mortgage fraud

that was actively going on.

The seeds of the scam were sown in March, 2010,

when an independent mortgage broker contacted Masthaven boss

Andrew Bloom on behalf of some of his clients.

He said he had two very wealthy borrowers from Middle East origin,

and they wanted to borrow money

against this fantastic £5 million property in Bayswater.

But they weren't after loose change.

They wanted a whopping £1.5 million loan.

The finance company were used to dealing with high end clients,

so nothing strange there,

as long as they could see the men's passports and proof

that they owned the £5 million property in Bayswater.

It gives us confidence that we're lending

to the people who we think we're lending to,

so they have to turn up with their government-backed ID

and proof of address and confirm who they are.

The men provided the required documents,

and the finance company confirmed that the name

on one of the passports matched the name

on the title deeds of the house.

So far, so good. Next, the company asked to value the men's property.

If somebody says their property is worth five million, how do we know?

The only way we know is by sending in a valuer

who then confirms if it's worth five million,

and if it's not, then how much is it worth?

The company had no reason to believe they weren't dealing

with two perfectly genuine, wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen.

But then something happened which aroused Andrew Bloom's suspicions.

His company insists on a face to face meeting

with all clients who want to borrow over £1 million.

A day later, it did make us suspicious

when, suddenly, the loan was dropped from 1.5 million to 925,000.

By lowering the loan amount to under £1 million,

it seemed that the men were trying to avoid any face to face meetings.

And there was something else suspicious about their behaviour.

When the company asked them for more information about the property

they were buying, their answers were evasive.

When we asked them what was the address, what were they buying,

why do they need £1.5 million in such a rush,

they were very flaky with their answer.

Andrew Bloom decided to double check the brothers' documentation.

They'd provided a utility bill, so he called the utility company

to make sure the account number on the bill matched the address.

It didn't.

It was at this point that Detective Constable Lizzie Roberts,

a fraud investigator with the City of London Police, was called in.

When Mr Bloom reported the matter to the police,

he forwarded the documentations which the scammers provided to him

in support of the application.

I conducted some searches with the Passport Office

and these were definitely false passports.

In fact, one of the passports was that of a child who had passed away.

The fraudsters had simply replaced the child's name and address

with that of the owner of the house in Bayswater.

It was now clear the police were dealing with a sophisticated scam.

The men were clearly not the owners of the Bayswater house,

but they had stolen the identity of the true owners

in order to secure a loan.

So who were the real owners of the property?

And how had the scammers gained access to their details?

The property belonged to a very rich Arab family

who, at the time of the fraud, were living in Dubai.

It was on the market for sale, and it was a vacant property.

The Land Registry is a government agency

which lists all properties in England and Wales and their owners.

It seemed the conmen had spotted this vacant property

and then contacted the Land Registry to find out who owned it.

Anybody can apply for the title deeds to any property

anywhere in the United Kingdom.

So it is not unusual for someone to walk into the Land Registry office

and ask for a copy of a title deed.

And this is exactly what the scammers had done.

Somebody did apply for the title deed for that property

in January, as well as in February.

And then, when we looked at the information

provided on the application form,

I was able to identify specific detail

which relates to our subject.

Bingo.

But this didn't explain how the scammers had gained access

to the property on the day of the valuation.

They didn't own the house and had no keys to it,

so how had they been able to let Andrew's valuer in

to perform his checks?

It was really cunning what they did.

They arranged for an appointment to visit the property

as if they were interested buyers,

and then the date that was arranged for the viewing of the property

was the same date that was arranged for the valuation.

So there's the estate agent thinking that the two people in the property

were interested in buying it,

there's us thinking that the two people in the property

own the property and they're just there to let in our valuer,

and there's the real brothers in some other parts of the world

not having any idea any of this is going on.

And if anyone asked any awkward questions

the men were ready with their answers.

They had told the estate agent that they were viewing the property

on behalf of their boss, an Arabian princess.

Once the valuer was measuring up and taking pictures of the property,

the estate agent asked, "Why is he measuring up?"

And he was told,

"Oh, because the Arabian princess wants to get a view

"of the property inside

"and also wants to order furniture for the house."

Ha ha ha! The brazen cheek of it.

The police now had enough evidence to go and arrest the scammers.

There was a problem - they didn't know where they were.

All we had at that point of the investigation

were all the false documentations.

Although there were photographs on the passports provided,

we had nothing else to go by.

They decided to mount a sting operation

to catch the criminals red-handed

and in this Andrew Bloom would play a crucial role.

At this point, the scammers had no idea the police were on to them,

so it made sense for Andrew to speak to the men's mortgage broker

and set up a meeting at the Marriott Hotel in London

in order to sign off the loan.

The plan was for Mr Bloom to go the reception and ask for the scammers,

and if he was directed to the scammers,

then the officer who was with him would just make a phone call,

which would be an indication for us to know that we were ready to arrest.

That was the plan.

But things didn't go according to plan.

At reception, they had no idea who I was referring to,

so following the police's instructions that I should

act normally, I phoned up the broker angry, as you would be.

And then I get a call from my office saying they're waiting at the bar

and you will see two people there in full Arab dress waiting for you.

And at this point I thought,

"Wow, this is really going to happen.

"These guys are actually just around the corner now."

Andrew and the plain clothes police officer approached the two men.

One of the sheikhs introduced himself

and gave the full name of the genuine owner

and introduced the other person present

as the other person whose name was on the application form.

The police were ready to swoop in to make their arrests,

and it turned out the men weren't real Arab sheikhs at all.

Unbelievably, they'd dressed up in costumes

and had tea towels on their heads.

The pair were arrested, and a trawl of their mobile phone records

revealed they'd been in constant contact

with a man called Shane Martin.

Shane Martin was actually the brains behind the whole scam.

He never signed any documentation.

He never appeared on anything.

But by examining the text messages between all the parties in the fraud,

we were able to identify that he was directing everybody,

every single stage of the scam.

Including the fake sheikhs' mortgage broker, Jonathan Flynn.

Phone records from the day of the sting

showed he'd been talking constantly

with the scam's mastermind, Shane Martin.

Mr Flynn was very, very clever,

because he does have the know-how of how the mortgage business

and the loan application works,

so he was really crucial in the fraud going ahead.

It was time for the scammers to have their day in court.

They were all charged with and convicted of

conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

Jonathan Flynn was sentenced to four-and-a-half years behind bars

and was banned from being a director of a company for seven years.

Shane Martin pleaded guilty,

so received a lesser sentence of two-and-a-half years.

Ahmed Ali, who posed as one of the sheikhs,

also got two-and-a-half years in the clink.

The final member of the gang to be convicted was Shakil Ahmed.

He failed turn up to court,

but was sentenced to three years in his absence

and is still to be found.

I was delighted that people were given

significant amount of time behind bars.

A mortgage fraud is not a victimless crime,

and it increases the mortgage payments of me

and every single other consumer out there.

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 Serious Organised Crime Agency

to get the low-down on what you should be looking out for.

Today we're looking at scams where you think you're getting a job,

but actually you're unwittingly laundering money.

How's it likely to happen?

What will happen is that you will be sent money

and your job is then to move that money on

to another bank account somewhere, or to even take it out in cash

and move it through a money service bureau,

who will then move it to somewhere else in the world.

So you do this because you think that's part of your job?

-You think you're performing a role and you're employed.

-Yes.

In fact, what's happening?

What's happening is, you're actually money laundering.

A legitimate employer will never use your personal bank account

to move its money around.

So beware, it's a scam

and could land you in hot water with the police.

Fraudsters will for ever be coming up with new ways

to get you to part with your cash,

but armed with a little bit of knowledge,

you could be one step ahead of them.

Stay safe, and I'll see you next time.

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