FinanceBAM News

According to a new article published by Funds Centre on 1^st June and written by Sarah Modlock a new kind of internet fraud is becoming popular. According to an estimate fraud costs the UK around £20bn a year and £3bn of that is through internet scams. Now a day’s people are custom to visiting chartrooms and dating websites on the net. There they often start an online relationship with confidence tricksters. Most are familiar with this kind of fraud as Nigerian ‘advanced fee’ or ‘419’ fraud (named after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code).

Although people are becoming aware of this kind of fraud but there is still a large number of lonely hearts out there who fall an easy pray. Sarah says she asked Mike Bowron, Commissioner of the City of London Police, the force which leads the UK’s fight against fraud why are people really falling for this? Surely no one is that trusting? “We’re seeing more and more of this,” he says she reported “We are keen to get the message out so that people don’t fall for it.” Bowron says that so-called ‘lonely hearts fraud’ is usually perpetrated by the same criminals who worked the ‘419′ scam. “The 419 crew realize that people are wising-up to that and so they decided to try a different approach and moved onto lonely hearts. It’s already paying off for them. It’s not just women that are falling for it; there are plenty of women laying the bait for unsuspecting men, too,” he explains. (more…)

Bank charges claims can now be processed online through a government scheme called the Money Claim Online Small claims service (MCOL) which is now being inundated with claims for bank charges claims.

There is such a huge influx of cases that the site almost comes to a stand still. Users are recommended by MCOL to use the site outside office hours to prevent such blockages of the site.

One member of staff from MCOL told a BBC reporter on Friday 8^th June; “we are getting thousands, hundreds of thousands, of cases since the bank charges cases started”.

Because the governments service do not log what a claim is for, it generally records the amount of claims made per day which is now on 600 claims a day more than twice of what was seen in 2006 – only the bank charges claims seem to be the only factor responsible for this surge or claims. (more…)