Member Article

Scams Awareness Month

February has been declared ‘Scams Awareness Month’; part of an international initiative organised by the International Consumer Protection Enforcement Network (ICPEN), which will see a stepping up of efforts to stamp out mass-marketed scams.

UK consumers lose an estimated £1 billion per year to such scams, and an estimated 28 million UK consumers are targeted every year via email, text message, post, telephone and internet to con people out of their money.

These include deceptive prize draws and lotteries, misleading premium-rate prize promotions, fake ‘psychic’ mailings, advance fee frauds and bogus work-at-home schemes, among others. John Fingleton, Office of Fair Trading (OFT) Chief Executive, said: “Scams damage individuals and undermine confidence in legitimate marketing techniques, harming fair-dealing businesses. Consumers who lose money to scams have very little chance of getting any of it back. So it is essential that,

in addition to enforcing the law against scammers, we equip consumers with the skills and knowledge necessary to avoid falling victim to them in the first place.“ The campaign will involve nationwide radio advertising, features and competitions, web advertising and online quizzes, distribution of over half a million leaflets on how to spot a scam, a step-by-step guide on protecting yourself from scams and an international internet sweep to identify ‘traps online’.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .