Trading Standard Information and Advice: Time to take action against scams

Our Trading Standards team has launched its latest Scamnesty initiative urging residents and businesses to hand in any scam mail they receive to their local library during February.

Examples include misleading mailings, often making false promises about bogus lottery wins or other high value prizes, that insist on payment to the sender before any winnings can be claimed.

Previous Scamnesty initiatives have seen more than 8,000 mailings handed in and resulted in co-ordinated action against the perpetrators, including:

Court action by our Trading Standards team against a company responsible for 130,000 misleading mailings following a complaint from an Uckfield resident.

Metropolitan Police seizure of £80,000 sent by scam victims secured with the help of a witness statement from an Eastbourne resident whose cheque had been intercepted en route to foreign scammers.

Warrants executed by the Metropolitan Police at five locations thanks to intelligence gained from scam victims in Eastbourne and Hastings.

Director of Economy, Transport and Environment, Rupert Clubb, said: “Our Trading Standards team takes this problem extremely seriously because, all too often, the targets of these scam mailings are elderly and vulnerable

“They can find themselves on the receiving end of wave after wave of misleading letters from across the world and part with hundreds of pounds as a result.  By collecting and analysing these mailings and unlocking the intelligence, we stand a much better chance of tackling the problem at source.”

For information and advice about consumer issues, contact Consumer Direct on 08456 04 05 06.  Information about the work of our Trading Standards team is available on our website