Campaign to target postal scams

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berk ... 227993.stm

Residents in West Berkshire and Dorset are being urged to collect scam mailings and hand them to their council as part of a new campaign.

The national initiative, by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), has been designed to fight against scams, which cost the UK about £3.5bn a year.

The Scamnesty campaign wants people to take the mail to "drop in and drop them in it" bins at local libraries.

The OFT said about three million people fall victim to market scams every year.

They appear in a number of forms, such as bogus lotteries, prize draws and sweepstakes, fake psychics, get-rich-quick schemes and miracle health cures.

Most scams are sent through the post, by e-mail or over the phone, and often target the elderly and vulnerable.

The OFT research suggests less than 5% of victims report the scam to the authorities.

In West Berkshire, collection points can also be found at the council's offices in Market Street, Avonbank and Faraday Road in Newbury.

[norbert]

One of Big Al's top customers is Biotonic & Vitamail who have proved how easy it is to rip off Joe Public , both send personalised junk mail announcing you've won 10,000 as long as they place a order for worthless vitamin supplements and hippy dippy "complementary " medicine .

Both firm's bogus jackpots have been exposed by the media so often that financial journalists yawn when their names come up . Across the Channel at least the French have taken action .Biotonic was based in Lille until it's founder was taken to Court and fined 30,000 Euros (20,000 £) with a additional suspended Prison sentence forcing the company to Belgium .

The British Advertising Standards Authority just wrings it's hands of the matter as they send 1 million mailings a month via ROYAL MAIL and generates 4,000 orders a day from naive credulous punters .

PM Gordon Brown boasts of the "light touch regulation " in the City , it seems dogs run free , Gordon has his attack dogs at the helm of Royal Mail and conmen , leeches and parasites can swindle with impunity .

[LUV THE SMELL OF LETTERS]

There are alot of scams like this the goverment know about. End of the day it generates money for the country. So they turn a blind eye to it all.Well thats if the company doing the scams actually pay their taxes.
These will never be stopped. I know a mentally ill man who puts atleast a ten pound note in nearly all the scam letters he gets. I've told him its a scam but he still keeps sending the money as they send him a plastic neclace as a runner up prize and he said his lass likes them. Just no helping some people.
Good luck on stopping it though mind