10 percent of Brits affected by scams

It has been revealed by the Office of Fair Trading that around 10 percent of Brits have been affected by scams in the past. This equates to around four million adults who have said that they have responded to what turned out to be a scam. Worryingly whilst 50 percent of those that had fallen for a scam had lost more than £50 to the fraudsters around 5 percent had lost more than £5000. Read more

Tags: Ethics, Social engineering, fraud, Deception, Confidence tricks, Spamming, Financial Services Authority, Reloading scam, office of fair trading

Confidence tricksters duping lonely hearts online

These days the power of the Internet means that a rising number of people have been using the Internet in order to look at dating sites and more importantly to meet someone, and it can be incredibly easy to chat with ease to people through these sites and feel as thought you have got to know them. Read more

Tags: Romance scam, crime, Online daters, Social engineering, Spamming, Ethics, Online dating service

Lotto scam sees some elderly consumers lose life savings

There are many different scams in circulation at present, with the economic climate and recession having seen the number of scams in circulation rise and the number of people prepared to take a risk on these scams also increase. In many cases fraudsters that operate these scams target more vulnerable people such as the elderly, and this is what has been happening with a lottery scam that has seen some elderly consumers dwindled out of their life savings. Read more

Tags: Social engineering, Spamming, Lottery scam, Lottery, office of fair trading

Common scams to avoid

Scam artists and fraudsters have been around for centuries in some form or another, and in the past most have focussed their efforts on the more vulnerable people such as the elderly or low income people who are desperate for a way out of their situations. However, in the past few years scams have become more widespread and have resulted in a greater range of people being targeted. The global credit crisis has brought many fraudsters and scam artists out of the woodwork, and many are now using methods that are either very sophisticated or ones that are so simple and obvious nobody would think to question it. Read more

Tags: Phone fraud, Scam letters, government agency, Spamming, Lottery, online scams