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Scams (Office of Fair Trading)

Thank you, Mr. Gale, it is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship. I am pleased to have secured a short debate on an issue that has a devastating effect on the lives of people throughout the United Kingdom. I am sure that, like me, all Members of Parliament have been contacted by constituents because either they or a relative have been the victim of a scam of one sort or another, be it a mail scam, an internet scam, a door-to-door salesman scam or a get-rich-quick scheme that seems too good to be true. There is even an internet dating scan, which was exposed just last week on ““Tonight with Trevor McDonald””. It is a sad reflection of life today that large numbers of fraudsters are constantly trying to trick people—often elderly and vulnerable people—out of money that they usually cannot afford to pay. Few people will not have received a scam letter or e-mail. Most of us recognise those for what they are: clever ways of pretending that if people send a cheque for £20, for example, they will win £5,000, or if they phone a number they will hear that they have definitely won a prize. Of course, that phone number is for a premium line and by the time that people have learnt that they have not won the phone call has cost £10. I am sure that even you, Mr. Gale, have received such communications. Most of us immediately bin such letters and e-mails, but some are sufficiently convinced that if they send the money or make the phone call they will receive money, but they never get anything back and even when the evidence of their own experience should be telling them that this is a scam, they continue to be taken in. We know that that is so, because if there were no return for the fraudsters they would stop. However, instead, they produce even more elaborate letters and become even more sophisticated. I shall confine my remarks to mail scams and I shall explain why I asked for this debate today. Over the years, a number of constituents have come to me with sacks of mail all demanding money in return for a promise, a gift or a poor-quality item. My advice has always been to put any further letters of that kind in the bin and never to send any money. One lady asked if I could get her money back and I had to say no. One gentleman went to the police with the catalogues for cheap, sub-standard goods that he had bought, but they told him that there was nothing that they could do because the goods originated from outside the United Kingdom. I was not able to help that man get his money back, no matter what bad value the goods were. My constituents knew that they had been taken for a ride, but they did not want to admit that they had been so gullible as to believe the promises. They just wanted the mail to stop. However, ironically, as long as the mail kept coming, they were constantly tempted to reply because they could not distinguish what might be real from what was part of the scam. Towards the end of last year, a constituent of mine, Gordon Lennox, came to see me because he was concerned about what had happened to his father-in-law, who had died in the summer. Mr. Lennox and his wife only became fully aware that her father, Robert Somerville, had been the victim of multiple scams after he died. At that stage, his mail was redirected to their house and they got control of his bank accounts. They had suspected that something was going on, because when he was in hospital he used to get very agitated about not being able to pick up his mail. He even went so far as to take taxis from hospital to his home to pick up his mail because no one else would bring it in. Even so, Mr. and Mrs. Lennox were flabbergasted when a deluge of mail arrived addressed to Mr. Somerville. I have one week's worth of his mail in front of me. When they saw how much he had been paying out, they were even more amazed. In three weeks in May last year, he had sent £650 to fraudsters, trying to claim prizes that they said he had won. Mr. and Mrs. Lennox think that he must have spent between £6,000 and £7,000 during the last year of his life. That was all the money he had, because he was an 87-year-old pensioner who lived on the basic pension and only had attendance allowance as a supplement. He even incurred £240 of bank charges while in hospital because he was still sending money, but had not been able to get to the bank to pay money in. Mr. Lennox says that his father-in-law was like a gambler and had become obsessed. But he was also of a generation that believed what was written in the letters it received. Why would he not believe that? The letters were addressed to him personally; they were emphatic in their promises; some of them looked like real invoices and real cheques; and sometimes they contained gifts that he felt obliged to pay for, especially when they appeared to have come from a charity. He was also of a generation that believed that it was only polite to reply to mail. However, he did not realise that the more money he sent, the more scam letters he received. By this time, he was on the suckers list, so his name and address were a saleable commodity. Much of the mail that Mr. Lennox's father-in-law received was in envelopes with a Royal Mail stamp, even though many of the return addresses were abroad. When he came to me, Mr. Lennox told me that he felt that there was a moral obligation on Royal Mail and that by accepting such bulk postings it was profiting from illegal activity. In his view, that should be illegal, too. He also felt that, as a public company, Royal Mail had a responsibility not to aid and abet people who were making money by deception. In November 2007, I wrote to Royal Mail expressing Mr. Lennox's view that it had a responsibility not to take money from people who were clearly fraudsters. The reply that I received said that there was little that Royal Mail could do:"““We are prevented by the Postal Services Act 2000 from opening or interfering with post. The Act requires that Royal Mail as the Universal Service Provider delivers the mail to the intended recipient as set out on the address/letter.""We are also governed by our licence to ensure (Condition 8 - integrity of the mail) that we take steps to ensure that the mail is not interfered with between the sender and the intended recipient. It therefore is not possible for Royal Mail to intervene in mail as the carrier.""This issue is also covered under the Act where statute 83 states that, 'A person who is engaged in the business of a postal operator commits an offence if, contrary to his duty and without reasonable excuse he intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post or intentionally opens a mail bag'." The letter continues:"““there are prohibitions within the Act””—" such as on sending creatures, something that ““is likely to injure”” someone else, or ““indecent photographs””. So there was no joy from Royal Mail; it appeared that it was not going to accept any responsibility for what was in the envelopes that it took money for delivering. The only part of the reply that gave any hope was a paragraph that stated:"““Royal Mail will cancel the contract of a company if it is proved that its mailings are fraudulent or misleading.””" Who is the judge of whether the contents of the letters were fraudulent or misleading? It is the Office of Fair Trading. I received that reply in November, and I had intended to apply for an Adjournment debate in December or January, but had not got round to it, so I was delighted when I came across a press release from the Office of Fair Trading saying that it had designated February as scams awareness month. That was music to my ears, because it meant that someone was taking the issue seriously, and I was pleased to hear about that initiative, which is called ““stamp out scams””. The OFT has produced a new booklet for carers and care professionals on how to recognise scams, and how to deal with them.