How It Works

 
Their ultimate goal is to be able to offer you a loan. They will boost your credit score, and remove any CCJ’s (count court judgments) and will entice you in with their guarantees of good credit! The simple truth is; it doesn’t work.

How to Identify a Credit Repair Scam

 
• There are no quick fixes.
• Are they asking you for an upfront fee?
• Are they offering you a loan? Tempting, but please read the T&C’s as you’ll find the interest rates are scandalous!
• Where did the source come from? Spam email perhaps – delete it.
• What are they offering you? To erase your bad credit in a matters of minutes – impossible, things like this takes time.

Walk away and don’t be fooled by these scammers. Getting involved with these companies could mean you end up further in debt than you already are!
 

Steps You Can Take To Repair your Credit Rating

 
• Order a copy of your credit file – you can get these from reputable credit agencies such as Experian, Call Credit and Equifax. They cost as little as £2.00 and make sure that you give it a thorough check. You can challenge anything that you think amiss.
• Go to the Data protection Commissioner and order the booklet “No Credit” this will gives you tips and advice.
• Set up payment plans with your lenders. You can get advice from your Citizens Advice Bureau.
• Paying your CCJ’s off in a month will mean it will be removed from the court records and credit files however the history of the debt maybe still on your credit files.
• The last stage is declaring yourself bankrupt and is only declared when it’s a last resort.

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Getting financial freedom can be difficult when you have creditors snapping at your heels, but there are measures you can put in place (stated above) to help you. Just make sure you do not fall for these scams that claim to be a 5 minute fix.

Stay safe!

How It Works

You purchase an item that doesn’t cost too much (£30 – £50) the purchases gives you the chance to get something like an iPod or a new flat screen. All you have to do is bring in a specific amount of people who buy the lower price product, and your name will be added to the list. When your name gets to the top you will get the free gift.

It may sound like a great idea but don’t be fooled, it’s really a scam. If you do the maths then you will see why. Basically by doing the calculations you will see that the number of members waiting for their free gift will always exceed the free gifts awarded. As an example: if you sign up in hundredth place on a waiting list that requires 50 new members per gift you will not reach the top and receive your gift until 5,000 people have joined.

Basically all you’ve done is over paid for a small product!!!

How To Avoid The Scam

• The shortest answer to the question is stay away from anything claiming to give you a gift in exchange for a fee.
• If you are tempted, consider whether the product you’re buying is worth the fee you’re paying. Chances are you could buy the same item for much less in high street.

Remember you don’t get something for nothing. Check the small print!

What To Do If You’re A Victim

The chances are you won’t get your money back. The best thing to do is to  is report the company to the Office of Fair Trading and Consumer Direct so that they can take action against the company and stop it happening to others.

Stay safe!

The Real Experts

 Accountant’s ­– Their lively hood is finance, specialising in taxes most of the time. This means it’s in their best interest to keep abreast of the tax industry and make sure they supply you with the correct information.  A good accountant can save you a lot of money for your business.

Financial advisor’s – Like accountants they are highly qualified and well regulated. They can offer you a range of advice on all things tax related plus more.

Newspaper Columnists- Newspapers can be a good source of information for all things; but their approach is a one size fits all. And in the case of tax, it’s different for everyone business. It’s best that you seek advice from someone that can make it personal to you and your business. However they are good for general advice.

The “Experts”

To be able to offer financial information you have to have the appropriate licenses and qualification. You’ll find many people online, in local papers and even in post offices offering you advice but you have to ask yourself who these are and make a point of finding out.

If you don’t then you could cost yourself a small fortune with HMRC and even the fee you pay for the so called expert!

Avoiding the Fakes

When looking for a tax advisor the best option is to ask around friends, family and other businesses for their recommendations. If you are unable to do this, go directly to accountants, or financial advisor’s. Make sure they are qualified and legit.

How to Differentiate Between the Real And The Dubious

•  If it’s pharmacy they will have a street address and a landline. A real pharmacy will always be happy to handle any queries you have.
• Think about how you discovered the email. Was it in your spam box or junk mail? If it was, then this is an indication to tell you to IGNORE.
• Do they want to charge a subscription fee? No real pharmacy would do this.
• How long has their business been around? Go on to Google, then cache www.nameofsite.com, site: www.nameofsite.com, and link www.nameofsite.com. This will give you when the search engine last checked the site and how many pages of the site. The more indexed pages the more it’s been online. Beware to sites that have only just got online.
• Look at the web address bar – does it have a padlock? If so this means they have a SSL certificate so that they are secure when taking credit card details – if they don’t have one  then stay away!

How Do You Know What you’re Buying?

U.S, Canada and the U.K regulate and test all drugs before they are allowed to be sold however Eastern Europe and Asia don’t. Most of the ingredients in the medication may be the wrong ingredients, too high or even too low.  The short answer is, unless is prescribe by your Doctor do not seek for it online where you could be subjected to health threatening conditions.

Online Pharmacy Scam

When you order of these unregulated pharmacies – how do you know you will even receive your goods? They will inform you that it takes 5-6 weeks delivery time however this is more than enough time to steal your credit card details, hack your accounts and steal your identity.

If you should decide to order than make sure you:

• Check your card statement
• Keep a look out for unfamiliar activity
• If you noticed anything amiss, contact your credit card company straight away!
• Contact the credit reporting agencies and ask for a copy of your credit file as well as asking for a fraud alert placed upon your account.

Online pharmacies are big business and there are many that are legitimate. Just make sure you do your research, and make sure that you’re dealing with a reputable and licensed company.

Stay safe!

How the Oxfam Charity Scam Works

You will receive an email advising you that the charity is offering cash grants and that in order to be eligible, you have to send your details including your bank details. As a giveaway to its dubious quality, the email is sent from a webmail address at live.com, rather than from Oxfam itself. There is also a 070 phone number to call to give you more information, but usually this number is directed to scammers overseas. The cash donations are usually 750,00 or 850,000 and have headers on the emails such as ‘Oxfam UK Grant/ Donation’ and ‘Final Recipient of Oxfam GB Cash grant’ to name but a few examples.

How to Avoid the Scam

If you have a good spam filter then these emails should appear there although if it should end up in your email box, then you should be aware that no charity will give grants in this way. This should raise your concerns! Another clue is that the webmail address is used rather than the company address. Every reputable charity will use their own email address in any correspondence that you receive.

The short answer of how to avoid a scam is DO NOT REPLY! Don’t give any money, or any details.

If you’re A Victim of the Oxfam Scam

• You need to inform your bank so that they can change your account.
• You need to contact the police and let Oxfam know as well.
• Contact the credit reference agency.

Stay safe!

This one means you have to be more vigilant about it because it doesn’t take a great deal of effort, to get yourself into trouble and you can become a victim so very easily!

How It Works

Even though you’re always advised to never click links in emails and to type the URL into the web browser, you may still be directed to a fake site and you don’t even realise it.

This kind of scam is nothing new to the professionals but the public has only just heard about it.

There are a few ways for pharming to be carried out; it can be done by changing the host files on the victims PC by infecting them with a virus. This exploits the weaknesses in the DNS server software. In simple terms, the scammers hijack the the address and substitute the fake site.
You carry on giving personal details and you think everything is OK!

How To Avoid It

Thee is no real effective way to completely avoid pharming but there are a few things that can help:

• Make sure any websites you go onto starts with https:// rather than just http://. Whether it be a transaction or giving information make sure it’s secure.
• Check whether the site has a certificate: Click File – Properties or right click the body of the page and select properties from the menu.
• Download and install security updates from your browser.
• Have a good firewall, anti-spyware an antif-virus software and remember to scan regularly.
• If you stumble upon a site that you think may have be pharmed, don’t use the site. Contact the institution and inform them.
• If you use online banking, make sure you check your accounts as often as you can.

How It Works

You will receive an email. This email seems official; it’s from a business or the government whom are offering you a large sum of money in your bank account so that they can get out of the country. They usually offer you a split of the money, whether it be half or a percentage. As you think it’s officiall, you will respond and then they will ask you to supply your bank details. There will be plenty of authentic documents to show the offer is real. However you may or may not be surprised to find out that, once you send the money, more ‘emergencies’ will happen that will require more money – and so, you keep giving until you don’t see a return and you run out of money.  On some occasions you may be asked to travel to Nigeria to complete the process. People who have travelled to these countries have been subjected to violence and threats because they haven’t got the money to pay, or have been presumed dead and missing.

The Variations

There are many different ways for this scam to take place:

• Crude oil and other commodity deals.
• A bequest left in your will.
• ‘Spoof banks’ – there is money in your name already on deposit.
• Service contracts.
• Fake lottery – You will supposedly receive a prize in a lottery you didn’t enter and so you have to send a ‘small’ fee to claim your prize.
• Auctions – commonly happens with eBay.. An eBay winner pays for an item with a cheque larger than the amount and asks for the change to be sent to them. However after the money has been sent, the original cheque or money order proves to be a forgery.
• Money cleaning- the criminal claims to have a lot of currency that needs to be “chemically cleaned” before it can be used and he needs to fund the chemicals cost with the help of you!

How to Deal with It

The best advice we can give to you is to click DELETE! It may look tempting, and the question ‘what are the chances I’m going to be scammed? ’  may run through your mind; but the actual answer to that is a very HIGH chance indeed!

Remember

• Never send blank letterheads or invoices
• Never travel to Nigeria in the hope of receiving the money as you could put yourself in huge danger.
• Never send your personal details, if you have then contact your bank straight away!
• Never send money in response to these scams.

What to do if you’ve been a Victim

Each year, thousands of people fall victims to  the 419 scam as it’s become a sophisticated operation run by people who know every trick in the book. If you have been a victim, the best thing you can do is log the crime with the police; however the chances of getting your money back is very slim. Due to the sophistication of these operations, it makes it very difficult for the authorities to track these people down.

Remember click DELETE! 

Have you ever heard of this scam?

Usually someone will call you up claiming that they are from your bank. Then they will quote the first 6 numbers of your bank card to you. You will assume this is legitimate as the only people who should have your personal identification numbers are you and the bank.

What you don’t know

What you don’t know is that, your Bank Identification Number (BIN) is easily obtained through the Internet. There are free listings with these numbers on, some you can pay a fee for as little as £10 and some are free; as you can see the Internet makes it easier for these scams to take place!

What happens next?

So you are supposedly speaking to someone from your bank; next they want to make sure you’re the account owner as there has been suspicious activity  and they want to clear it up for you. How kind of them?  They ask you a few more questions, such as account number and sort codes and you easily give these details to them as they have your (BIN number) and only your bank would have this right?

Your bank account is then cleared out!

How to stay safe

Scammers are trained cons men/woman and they are well versed in making people believe that blue is black and black is blue. If someone does call from your bank, still assume that they are not legitimate – ask them for a number *a landline* so that you can call them back.

Please note: banks will call to do security checks when big purchases are made, but if it’s a legitimate bank , they will be happy to give you their number .

Remember not to be fooled by the person quoting your BIN; if they are legitimate then they won’t have a problem you phoning them back. If they should make a fuss in anyway,  it’s wise to assume that this is not legitimate so do not give them any  information.

How It Works.

There are many ways to get your credit card number, from third parties of even people finding your details in your bins. However the most common way is usually from something you’ve bought or ordered online and especially with adult services.

You will find that charges will appear on your card statements, and they’re usually quite small, nothing bigger than £20 but you’re not too sure where they are coming from.  When you phone the company you find out it’s for a subscription service that you’ve apparently took out.  If it’s an adult subscription, you’ll find that the ‘OK’ agreement you agreed to includes these hidden extras!

You have to tell the company to stop the service and it’s no surprise it can take a while or you can challenge the charges with your credit card company by telling them they were unauthorised.

900,000 people in 22 countries where scammed in 1999 bringing in an incredible £20 million!!

How to Avoid the Scam

• Always tear up your credit card receipt  *using a shredder is good method*
• Check your statements often, anything you don’t understand, raise a query with your company.
• Be careful who you give your card information to.
• Always read the small print before agreeing to anything
• If you didn’t order it, then raise an issue with your credit card company.

What to to if you’re a Victim

If it is a subscription you didn’t order, put it in writing that you want the service to terminate. If this doesn’t happen then contact the Customer Direct and the Financial Services Authority who can peruse the matter further and also let your credit card company know of the problem.