Frauds

"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.

A health watchdog has issued a warning after patients were fined for unintentionally using prescription pre-payment certificates after their expiry date.

Healthwatch Shropshire, a local watchdog and health and social care champion, said it had been contacted by several patients over the issue.

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/health/2023/06/20/warning-issued-after-patients-fined-for-nhs-fraud/

An Essex mechanic and "banger" race driver has had a £30,000 insurance claim for injury thrown out of court and been ordered to pay £23,000 in costs after he was "dishonest" and kept his previously broken bones a secret.

Jason "Boxer Jack" Jackson, 43, from Basildon, blamed his "severe back pain" on a minor road crash, but law firm investigators working for an insurance company tracked down a newspaper article from two years prior to the crash. Here, Mr Jackson talked about injuries he had sustained racing old motor cars, which firm Clyde & Co said he had not disclosed to medical examiners.

A FRAUDSTER who posed as a police officer to con elderly people out of thousands of pounds on Canvey has been convicted.

Abul Anam Sadruddin, 28 of Dod Street, London appeared at Basildon Crown court last week where he was found guilty of two counts of fraud by false representation.

https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/despicable-fraudster-posed-cop-con-121455467.html/

The work of Trading Standards holds businesses, individuals and manufacturers accountable for the goods and services they offer.

Martin Evans, 48, of Penperlleni, Monmouthshire was sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court to 45 months imprisonment for seven offences under the Fraud Act 2006; and 12 months imprisonment for one offence under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. The sentences are to run concurrently. He was taken into custody immediately and will serve half his sentence before being considered eligible for parole.

https://www.abergavennychronicle.com/news/trading-standards-case-sees-penperlleni-man-jailed-for-fraud-622548