Claire King, star of television’s Emmerdale and Bad Girls, launched the OFT’s internet scam sweep and web chat today in the final phase of the 2006 Scams Awareness Month.
Over the next three days thousands of websites will be scrutinised by 53 consumer protection agencies from 21 countries and by over 20 Trading Standards Departments within the UK (note 2), in a worldwide sweep for online scammers. The OFT is conducting the sweep with international partners throughout the International Consumer Protection Enforcement Network (ICPEN) as part of a joint initiative ( see note 1).
Home working scams will be the focus of the sweep. This is the final phase of the OFT’s Scams Awareness Month which has run throughout February and which aims to arm consumers with the skills and knowledge needed to protect themselves from mass-marketed scams. An estimated five million people in the UK fall victim to scammers each year, according to the OFT’s research (note 3).
There are three main types of scam homeworking scheme:
- Directory schemes – these often appear in e-mails as well as local and national press and shop windows. They ask for a fee of about £15 up front in exchange for a list of companies offering work to homeworkers. The recipient normally receives a photocopied sheet or leaflet, of other homeworking scheme adverts, charging from £10 to £200 to register with no genuine offers of work at the end.
- Recruitment schemes - these typically ask for people to send £15 for information on homeworking opportunities. The recipients are then told to place more adverts in shop windows to recruit more people to the scheme, in order to receive a marginal sum for each new person recruited who also paid £15. This is essentially a pyramid selling scheme that encourages people to con yet more victims.
- Kit schemes - these often offer work making arts and crafts products from kits provided by the advertiser on the understanding they will buy it back from the homeworker when it is complete. The kits can cost from £10 to £200 and however good the product made by the homeworker it will be rejected on the grounds that it has ‘failed’ the quality standards. The victim never makes any money from the scheme.
Mike Haley, Head of the Scambusters’ team said:
‘Bogus schemes are an increasing problem for those looking for genuine work to do at home. Like all scams the tell-tale sign to beware of is the fact that the company will ask for money up-front. You should never have to pay a fee to get paid work.’
Claire King will be taking part in a web chat on scams with Mike Haley, head of the OFT’s Scambusters team, to advise and answer queries from online viewers. The web chat will be available to view at 14:30 on www.webchats.tv
The OFT’s will also be launching several interactive scam games on its website and two spoof website pages to demonstrate what scam sites might look like.
NOTES
ICPEN is a network of over 30 international enforcement bodies from five continents and its main aim is to encourage consumer law enforcers in different countries to join forces in tackling cross border problems. The sweep is one of the network’s joint initiatives, co-ordinating an annual worldwide internet sweep searching the internet for websites that make false or deceptive promises.
The TSDs and other UK organisations taking part are: Aberdeen, Bridgend, Buckinghamshire, Dorset, Dundee, Essex, North Tyneside, Northamptonshire, North Lanarkshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Plymouth, Renfrewshire, Slough, Somerset, St. Helens, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Kensington and Chelsea, Worcestershire and the Highland Council.
To find out more about the National Group on Homeworking visit their website at www.homeworking.gn.apc.org