Scam aware

16 February 2007

February is the month when the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) runs its scams awareness campaign, part of an international initiative to make consumers savvy to the thousands of fraudulent and misleading scams that are targeted at them. The ASA fully supports this initiative. We receive hundreds of complaints a year from consumers about advertising scams and we welcome any moves that will help consumers to protect themselves from being duped.

Research published in December 2006 showed that UK consumers lose some £3.5 billion a year to scams. Not all scams target consumers via the mail, but the complaints that the ASA receives concerning scams are principally about mailings, a large proportion of which come from overseas.

The most problematic overseas mailings tend to be either fake lottery/prize draw mailings or those, like those highlighted by the OFT in its drive last week,clairvoyants and psychics.

The mailings will, if they are a prize draw mailing, claim that the recipient is a winner: “Your name has come out as a winner!”; “You have been identified as the sole and rightful recipient of £[insert figure in thousands]”; “Dear XXX. Your right to winnings of £[insert figure in thousands] is hereby confirmed as fully eligible and pending”.  Psychic mailings will imply that the recipient has had a period of bad luck, but offer a way out ... for a fee. What unites these scams is that after sending your money, the respondent is likely to be very disappointed with whatever they are sent in return, if they receive anything at all. And it’s not only money that people falling victim to scams might lose. For some, being scammed can lead to depression and relationship breakdown. So the message to consumers is be scam aware. Further information on the scam awareness campaign can be found here