ASA backs scams awareness month
09 February 2007
The Advertising Standards Authority is supporting the Office of Fair Trading’s (OFT) scams awareness month as part of an international drive by consumer protection bodies to stamp out scams. The ASA deals with hundreds of complaints about advertising scams every year. Mass-marketing scams are fraudulent, misleading and pernicious and often target the most vulnerable people in society. By raising consumer awareness and working closely with the OFT we can educate the public on how to avoid falling for them and to ultimately help stamp out scams.
As part of its Scams Awareness Month, the OFT is warning consumers not to fall for bogus clairvoyant mailings sent out to thousands of people in the UK every year.
Letters from so called psychics or clairvoyants offer predictions or promise healing properties for a small fee. Often these mailings are aggressive in tone, predicting that something bad will happen if the recipient does not send them money. Although they are sent out in their thousands, the mailings are personalised to make recipients look as if they have been specially chosen and those who respond can be repeatedly targeted.
In one example uncovered by the OFT a mailing told consumers that the place they were living in was ‘a zone which has been “booby trapped” by negative waves’, and it offered a solution for a payment of £29.
Extravagant and potentially misleading claims are also made about rituals the psychic will undertake or items, such as jewellery, that the psychic will provide and which it is claimed will bring the recipient good luck and will ward off evil forces. ‘Lucky’ items include Esmerelda’s ‘Money creating Scarab of the Pharoes’, Gabriel d’Angelo’s ‘Happiness Beamer, Serena’s ‘Parchment of the Sacred Olive Branch’ , Maria Rosa’s ‘Bracelet of Ameno’ Lise and Rose’s ‘Gold Card’ and Marie Desperance’s ‘Golden Thread’
Recent OFT commissioned research into the impact of mass marketed scams indicated that more that 170,000 consumers fall victim to clairvoyant scams every year, losing around £40 million.
The OFT’s Scambusters team has written to the following ‘clairvoyants’ about the potentially misleading content of their mailings: Chris, Esmeralda, Gabriel d’Angelo, Lisa and Rose, Maria Rosa, Marie Desperance, Pia Anderson, Rachel, Serena. None have responded. As a result the OFT is publicising its actions to allow consumers to make informed choices about ‘clairvoyants’ who are using PO Boxes as return addresses for their mailings. It will also be contacting overseas counterparts to ask them to shut down any post boxes used by those named.
Claims made by those named by the OFT include:
‘Maria Rosa’ who claimed ‘in the next few days you will have the very tidy sum of £169,000 in your possession’
‘Gabriel d’Angelo’ claimed ‘You have to trust me….BECAUSE YOUR FUTURE AND YOUR HAPPINESS DEPEND ON IT‘
Lise and Rose’ claim that ‘there is, in your home, in the very place where you are living, a zone which had been booby trapped’
‘Serena’ claimed that ‘Your life will be beautiful and you deserve it, thanks to the Parchment of the Sacred Olive Branch which will protect you and bring you happiness’.
Christine Wade, OFT Assistant Chief Executive, Consumer Advice and Trading Standards said: ‘These mailings target the vulnerable and the superstitious by playing on their hopes or fears. We would urge all consumers targeted by such mailings to throw them away and not be intimidated into replying and sending money.’