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08-19-2007, 06:29 PM
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Top 10 Scams in The UK
Top 10 Scams in the UK
The following scams are widely considered the top 10 scams targeting citizens in the UK. These scams are a problem all over the world as well. 1. Credit Scams: This advance fee fraud offers quick loans regardless of credit history, but would be participants must pay a fee to cover insurance before it is released. After that fee is paid, the victim never hears from the company again. 2. Pyramid Schemes: this scam is a means of selling goods that is illegal in the UK. Investors are misled about the likely returns. These schemes offer a return on a financial investment based on the number of new recruits to the scheme. 3. Matrix Schemes: some websites offer gadgets as “free gifts” in when one spends £20 or more on an inexpensive product. The target is put on a list. The person at the top of the list receives the gift only after a prescribed number of new members join up. 4. Property Investment Schemes: targets attend a free presentation, where scammers persuade them to spend money to enroll on a course promising to make them a successful property dealer, but the properties are often near-derelict and the tenants non-existent. 5. Prizes Draw Mailings: Prize-drawings, sweepstakes and foreign lottery mailings are the basis of many scams. Scammers then claim the bogus prizes can only be awarded in return for “fees”. 6. Premium Rate Phone Numbers: the target receives a notification of a win in a sweepstakes or a holiday offer in this scam includes instructions to ring a 090 number. Calls to the number incur expensive charges, the recorded message is lengthy, and the prize is bogus. 7. Investment Scams: An unsolicited telephone call offers the opportunity to invest in 'soon-to-be-rare commodities that are not quoted on any stock exchange and could be difficult to sell afterwards, or are said to be stored in secretive Swiss bank vaults, so the investment can never be seen. 8. Nigerian Advance Fee Frauds: these frauds take the form of an offer (via letter, e-mail or fax) to share money in return for using the recipient's bank account to transfer of the money out of the country. Scammers also claim that money is needed up front to bribe officials. The scammers will then use the bank account details to empty their victim's bank account. 9. Work-at-home and business opportunity scams: on application, would-be workers are asked for money up-front, or are asked to invest in a business with little chance of success and, after payment, hear nothing. 10. Telephone Lottery Scams: unsolicited calls tell people they are being entered into a draw often under the name of genuine lotteries, but upon “winning” (the prize does not exist) they are told they must send money to pay for administration fees and taxes, but before they can claim their prize. 
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