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By Sarah Modlock
Who's after you money, your passwords and your holiday snaps? Recently, my blood ran cold when I read about the laptop repair companies which snoop through private files and attempt to copy passwords for everything from your Facebook account to your online banking. Fraud is up - and we're more gullible I guess desperate times make people, well, desperate. It's starting to show too as a record number of serious fraud cases hit the courts in the first six months of the year. KPMG's "Fraud Barometer" revealed that there were 163 charges of serious fraud – where more than £100,000 is embezzled – in the first half of this year, with a combined value of £636m. Around half the money was stolen from investors as crooks change their techniques and get more daring as people get more desperate in the economic downturn. The biggest case that has come to court this year was a £200m swindle involving the attempted fraudulent sale of the Ritz Hotel in London - it sounds like something out of a heist movie. But not all cases are aimed at the obviously wealthy. KPMG says professional gangs are out in force looking for targets. Hitesh Patel, partner at KPMG Forensic, says: "The figures are bad, but the worst is yet to come. It will be a number of years before the impact of the recession fully feeds through into the fraud statistics. Hard times mean more people driven to fraud by personal pressures, and more investors willing to believe in cooked-up investment schemes." A classic example is a large buy-to-let fraud in the North East earlier this year conned around 2,000 investors out £40,000 each. It later turned out the properties they had bought were in properties derelict shells. Here's a look at a number of other scams that you need to be aware of, starting with the recent outrage over technicians snooping through personal data on laptops. Computer repairs An undercover investigation by Sky News found that some computer repairers were just as dodgy as cowboy workmen as they misdiagnosed faults, invented problems and presented customers with big bills for fake work. But more worrying still is how they snooped through emails, photo albums and confidential documents and stole passwords. The laptop presented by the undercover reporter had nothing wrong with it except a lose memory chip. But the computer contained a hidden camera which recorded the activities of the repair staff. They approached four specialist repair companies in London. The first firm - Laptop Revival in Hammersmith - found the lose chip straight away but then claimed the motherboard was faulty and could be repaired for £100. This was after the repairer had browsed through a folder marked ‘Private' and flicked through they fictitious owner's holiday photos, including intimate snaps of her in a bikini. A few hours later, another technician boots the machine. He searches the hard-drive until he finds log-in details for the girl's Facebook and Hotmail. The next firm, PC World, did not snoop but was a let-down on the diagnosis and charging, insisting the motherboard needed replacing at a cost of £230 payable in advance. But when the computer was collected and examined it appeared only a memory chip had been replaced and not the motherboard. After calling customer service for an explanation investigators were told they wouldn't be getting a refund and the £230 was for PC World's expertise at diagnosing the fault. Next, Digitech in Putney fixed the fault but had a good snoop through holiday photos before trying to hide their tracks. The company have refused to give an official response. Evnova in the Barbican spotted the loose memory chip but they also said a new motherboard was needed. The investigator declined their offer and collected the laptop. But under examination it was discovered that Evnova technicians had soldered the memory-bus pins together to ‘recreate' the original fault. When confronted, the irate owner admitted soldering the parts, claiming he thought the investigator was from a rival repair company. Tony Neate, Managing Director of www.getsafeonline.org said: “If you suffer this kind of snooping then alert police.” Car-selling scam People selling cars in the UK are losing millions from a scam that promises to match them with a buyer, charges them a fee, and disappears. At first, the seller places an advert for vehicle. A cold call is made by the so-called matching agency, claiming a buyer is lined up. The seller then pays up to £99 for the match. No sale is made, and the money is lost. Advice service Consumer Direct says it received over 1,500 complaints about the practice last year alone. Much more worryingly, it estimates that only one in 20 victims complains. The Office of Fair Trading estimates the scam costs UK consumers around £3m a year. Fake Tax emails Identity theft is also on the up and spam emails have increased. A new trick is for fraudsters to pose as Inland Revenue & Customs with a tax-related fake email prompting recipients to enter their personal and financial details into a site reached through a fake link. Selling your passport Last week, a number of the country's largest banks called on the government to set up a database to help them identify forged foreign passports. There are growing concerns that it is all too easy to set up a bank account, an overdraft or get a credit card, using a forgery. A report by the BBC says that with just a couple of clicks of a mouse, anyone can find fake driving licences, National Insurance numbers and passports from the UK and abroad for sale over the internet. The Identity and Passport service runs its own passport validation service which has checked a 100,000 UK passports in the last two years. Of these, 1,000 fraudulent passports were detected, saving £4m in prevented fraud. But there is no equivalent service for foreign passports, the report added. • If something is too good to be true (think 'Free cash'; 'Lottery win'; '10% return' etc) then it almost certainly is and should be avoided. • Check the credentials of anyone you're thinking of investing with or giving personal details to. If they are honest they won't mind and will give you all the information you need. If someone is offering an investment they should be regulated so check they are registered with the Financial Services Authority's register on its website www.fsa.gov.uk, or by calling 0300 500 5000. • Take your time. If an 'amazing deal' is only available if you sign up straight away then opt out. • Don't throw money at something just because your neighbour/cousin/colleague has done it. Do your own homework. • Remember to protect your identity - shred statements, bills and mail which contains personal information. If you are disposing of an old computer, make sure you destroy information on the hard drive. Remember to redirect your mail if you move house. And get into the habit of always checking bank statements and credit card statements carefully against receipts.
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