Frauds

Fraudsters on Meta-owned platforms are increasingly taking advantage of British animal lovers, new data shows.

According to research from Lloyds, pet scams were up 24 per cent compared to last year with the average victim losing £307.

Shocks to food supply chains including the recent Kakhovka dam burst in Ukraine are raising the risk of food fraud, according to analysis by global assurance partner, LRQA.

https://www.cips.org/supply-management/news/2023/june/supply-shocks-raising-alarms-over-food-fraud/

Police are warning residents of courier fraud, after reports of scammers targeting elderly people in the county.

West Mercia Police has issued a warning for residents, after receiving reports of courier fraud in Shropshire and Telford.

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/crime/2023/06/26/police-warn-of-fraud-that-sees-scammers-posing-as-officers/

The victim of a scam that saw her £113,000 out of pocket is now working to prevent it happening to other people. Rachel Elwell has shared her story after it was revealed 40 per cent of romance scams take place during the summer, according to digital research company ESET. Rachel, from Walsall, was persuaded to join Facebook's dating site during a New Year celebration in 2020 and began chatting with people during the Covid lockdown.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1784079/woman-facebook-romance-scam

"If something appears too good to be true, it probably is," says police amid a spate of farm machinery fraud incidents leading angry victims to Isle of Wight farmers.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police are investigating fake adverts for farm machinery being published on social media sites such as Facebook and legitimate publications and magazines.

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has confirmed that it recently approached the Home Office to discuss the development of a charter for the pensions industry, as part of the government’s fraud strategy.

In an update to the Work and Pensions Committee, TPR executive director of frontline regulation, Nicola Parish, said that TPR is committed to working with the Home Office and its partners within government and industry to disrupt scams and fraud, as well as to pursue fraudsters.

The British consumer protection magazine Which? recently identified some of the most convincing and successful scams of 2023, which included "pig butchering" (described below), the "missing person scam,” and the “fake app alert.” These scams insidiously take advantage of various psychological attributes and cognitive strategies, including weaknesses, blind spots, biases, and heuristics, to infiltrate defenses and successfully scam consumers.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-fraud-crisis/202306/pig-butchering-and-other-scams-on-the-rise

Recruitment fraud is usually done through emails, social media, messaging apps, fake websites, or other similar means. Individuals or groups might pretend to represent, or pretend to act on behalf of Petrofac to obtain financial gain - be it money or recently even virtual currency.

https://www.petrofac.com/careers/recruitment-fraud/

Opportunistic insurance fraud cases, such as exaggerated claims and false application information, saw a 61% year-on-year increase in the March 2022 to April 2023 period, according to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED).

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/claims/opportunistic-insurance-fraud-cases-up-61-449842.aspx

If you're booking your next holiday, watch out for fake deals, clone websites and bogus cancellations, as criminals are ramping up their efforts to trick holidaymakers out of their money this summer.

Figures from fraud reporting agency Action Fraud show that over £15 million was lost to holiday booking scams between April 2022 and April 2023 – a 41% increase on the previous year – with the summer months seeing the most scams reported.