5 Million Brit’s Duped By Work At Home & other Scams

From the Channel Register

Five million UK adults have fallen victim to a series of moneymaking frauds, such as premium-rate prize scams, work-from-home schemes and Nigerian 419 email scams, according to research published by consumer watchdog Which?.

Britain’s most widespread scam, according to the new research, is the automated phone call that invites people to claim a prize. One-third of adults have received one of these calls and two million have responded, usually by calling a premium-rate number.

One work-from-home scheme was nothing more than a suggestion that recipients copy the pack, place a newspaper advert, and send the same pack to people willing to pay the up-front fee – so no end product, just a succession of people scamming money from each other.

The so-called “Nigerian 419″ email scam, named after the relevant part of the Nigerian penal code, has been seen by eight per cent of people. Scenarios differ, but there is always a large sum of money waiting to be paid out which, in order to be claimed, requires absolute secrecy, a foreign bank account number and an “advance fee”. The victims, of course, never receive any money.