Scam Mailing

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) on securing this debate, on an issue that can have such a devastating impact on so many people across the country. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), I do not profess to have gone into the matter in as much depth as our hon. Friend has, but I would like to bring some insights from my constituency to the discussion.

The Office of Fair Trading has warned us that, during difficult economic times, not only will the number and incidence of scams rise, but the range of scams will be much greater. We therefore need to be much more vigilant and sceptical about what comes through our letterboxes and who telephones our homes. I appreciate that the debate is confined to the postal service, but as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) mentioned, the growing use of the internet is critical, too.

My local police in Dyfed-Powys tell me that the type of scams they are dealing with have changed a lot in the past few years. There was more of an emphasis on postal fraud, but now Dyfed-Powys police are seeing more innovative attempts, often online. That is to be expected, given the advances in technology and in the psyche of the scammers, who are looking for more cost-effective ways to perpetrate their criminality.

In 2011, Citizens Advice conducted a survey asking what are the 10 most common scams and frauds. Of the 558 people in Wales who were surveyed, the biggest concern, identified by 62% of respondents, was switching: being offered money-saving deals to switch energy or phone suppliers that result in paying more money. Also high on the list, identified by 45% of respondents, were bogus debt advice companies that claim to help manage people’s debt, subject to fees, but once those fees are paid, the debt advice is not forthcoming. The third highest, with 44% of respondents, was—we have already heard a lot about this—those elusive prizes: timeshares, wonderful cars and huge amounts of cash. The local citizens advice bureau in Aberystwyth in my Ceredigion constituency alerted me to the case of an elderly gentleman who received a letter from a company informing him that he had won the magical £50,000, and in order to claim, of course, he had to buy £25 of goods from a catalogue.

There is a technical discussion to be had about the inadequacies or otherwise of legislation, as the hon. Member for South Derbyshire alluded to in her speech, but this debate also serves the important purpose—there have been debates in this House on such matters before—of shedding the light of publicity, because educating and informing people is a critical tool in defying the scammers.

Dyfed-Powys police inform me that the “receive £50,000 if you pay £25” type of scam has recently grown considerably, and the scam not only means the elderly person who replies loses money, but it allows the potential for their details to be passed on and on. Once bank details are passed on, the whole thing spirals in an unimaginably large way. The global dimension must not be lost either.

Members may have read the case, not a Welsh case, of Mr Paul Kiely from Suffolk, who discovered after his mother’s death that she had spent up to £20,000 responding to scams. On going through her paperwork, the extent to which she was being bombarded by post, often three or four letters every day, became clear. The more people respond, the more likely they are to be a target; it is a vicious cycle, particularly for the vulnerable and elderly in our society.

I have a case from my surgery, and other Members have also alluded to such cases, of a constituent who paid money for goods by bank transfer from what he believed to be a reputable website. When the goods did not materialise, the consumer returned to complain, only to discover the website had disappeared.

We are aware of the dangers of scam phone calls, and Ceredigion citizens advice bureau has informed me of cold calls from agencies claiming to be Citizens Advice, National Debtline, the consumer credit counselling service or the Office of Fair Trading and seeking payment for debt management assistance, often persuading consumers to part with their bank details.

Parliament is not immune from the scammers. In December last year a constituent of mine, a prominent farmer and butcher, received a letter from the “Office of Parliamentary Research” stating that it would like to use the details of my constituent’s business in its work, but, of course, it would cost him a fee. Suspecting from the outset that that was not what it seemed, my constituent got in touch with my office. A member of my staff rang the parliamentary switchboard and asked to be put through to the department the letter claimed to have been sent from, which did not exist in the same name. When the operator put my staff member through to the department with the closest-sounding name and asked for the person who had signed the letter, she was unsurprisingly told that no such person worked there. When my staff member explained why she was calling, she was advised that the call was not the first of its kind and the letter had nothing to do with Parliament; it was a bogus request for money. The letter was cleverly worded to get through the law, and, of course, our advice was to steer well clear. I have had two or three similar cases in my constituency, and I am sure people across the country have been approached. The sad reality is that many may have complied with the request for money, given the name on the letterhead.

So how do we address that problem? I have learnt a great deal from the hon. Members for South Derbyshire and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on the specifics of the Royal Mail. Education and awareness are critical, In my Ceredigion constituency we have had some excellent campaigns over the years involving trading standards and the voluntary sector, with Scambusters being the latest, We must promote to our constituents the value of protecting private details until they know who they are dealing with and treating all mail, e-mails and cold callers with acute caution. If something sounds too good to be true, the sad reality is that it probably is.

Dyfed-Powys police have talked glowingly of Action Fraud, the national campaign in which they have participated since December 2012. The scheme is run by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau in conjunction with City of London police with the intention of gathering a range of cases from across the country and collecting information on incidents and reports into a central database. The information is collated and analysed before being fed back to the police force in the area where the scam may have originated. Since Dyfed-Powys police went live with the scheme in December, they have received three such packages in only two months. They tell me that they find that method helpful in dealing with perpetrators. Last year, in Newtown in mid-Wales, five or six people were arrested in connection with a scam involving the online purchase of iPads and iPhones—payment was made, but the product never arrived. The work at the centre to collect that information and feed it through to Dyfed-Powys police meant that the perpetrators could be dealt with.

Consumer Focus has also done good work on scam mail, and its “Stay Private” website should be commended for helping people who sign up to reduce the amount of unwanted mail and sales calls they receive by bringing various marketing opt-out services together. The site is popular, with some 60,000 people signing up so far, which gives a small indication of the scale of the problem.

I cannot commend my local trading standards strongly enough, although it has limited resources. Above all else, trading standards need to hear from people who have been subjected to scams, but often people, particularly elderly people, are embarrassed. There is an issue with the addictive nature of scam mail, to which the hon. Member for South Derbyshire alluded, but sometimes people are embarrassed that they have been fooled or taken in for so long, and they, too, need support and encouragement to come forward.