Reports of frauds on the elderly are 'tip of iceberg'

Fraudsters scammed nearly 49,000 older people across the UK in the past year, equivalent to almost six reports every hour, a BBC investigation has found.


The total number of reports has nearly doubled in the past three years, 5 live Investigates has learned.


But one expert said the true number of elderly victims was likely to be in the millions. ..........


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Time to crush the fraudsters

We've had a few good ones over the years, we'd won the lottery in Spain or where ever (difficult as we never did any lottery) but had to send money to pay the tax then a cheque would wing its way to us. A few letters from Nigeria asking us to invest in a company/ transfer money from a company into our account because the company had made too much money we'd look after the money for a bit and get a cut for it, of course we'd have to give them our account details/the best one was supposedly from a solicitor that told us a long lost relative had died in S. Africa in a car crash and wanted our details to transfer uncle Jim's money to us. We are really being targeted at the moment by people who we've agreed to help with various books to be given to schools about drugs, staying safe, bullying, we are supposed to have agreed to an advert in these books, similar with emergency service magazines, (this is only because I am down as self employed , I keep wondering how anyone would know) There are pages of telephone numbers on line of known scammers but little seems to be done about them. We've also had the something wrong with your computer its sending signals to Microsoft or whatever, then there's the 'your internet is about to be cut off, there's a problem with payments we need your details'. The best yet was a supposed bailiff who was in court waiting for my case to be heard, apparently I had not replied to many letters, phone calls and e mails, luckily he had managed to contact me so that I could transfer £4,000 to a holding account until the problem was solved. He gave me his number and name for me to check the bailiffs list and he was listed, I looked up his name (I don't owe anyone anything let alone £4,000) and found he was sacked as a bailiff two years previously. I rang him back and got an account number to transfer the money, found out it was a bank in Bolton and gave all the info to the police and trading Standards, we also rang the bank and told them what was going on, they just said they'd keep an eye on the account - big deal. Meanwhile he kept ringing me getting more abusive with every call, even when I said I'd reported him.

Flix wrote:We've had a few good ones over the years, we'd won the lottery in Spain or where ever (difficult as we never did any lottery) but had to send money to pay the tax then a cheque would wing its way to us. A few letters from Nigeria asking us to invest in a company/ transfer money from a company into our account because the company had made too much money we'd look after the money for a bit and get a cut for it, of course we'd have to give them our account details/the best one was supposedly from a solicitor that told us a long lost relative had died in S. Africa in a car crash and wanted our details to transfer uncle Jim's money to us. We are really being targeted at the moment by people who we've agreed to help with various books to be given to schools about drugs, staying safe, bullying, we are supposed to have agreed to an advert in these books, similar with emergency service magazines, (this is only because I am down as self employed , I keep wondering how anyone would know) There are pages of telephone numbers on line of known scammers but little seems to be done about them. We've also had the something wrong with your computer its sending signals to Microsoft or whatever, then there's the 'your internet is about to be cut off, there's a problem with payments we need your details'. The best yet was a supposed bailiff who was in court waiting for my case to be heard, apparently I had not replied to many letters, phone calls and e mails, luckily he had managed to contact me so that I could transfer £4,000 to a holding account until the problem was solved. He gave me his number and name for me to check the bailiffs list and he was listed, I looked up his name (I don't owe anyone anything let alone £4,000) and found he was sacked as a bailiff two years previously. I rang him back and got an account number to transfer the money, found out it was a bank in Bolton and gave all the info to the police and trading Standards, we also rang the bank and told them what was going on, they just said they'd keep an eye on the account - big deal. Meanwhile he kept ringing me getting more abusive with every call, even when I said I'd reported him.

Can you think of any reason why they been targetting you Flix?

Most of the lottery  and letters were to my husband the advert and bailiff scams I think because I'was working for a small business and did the ordering, it started when we ordered from a discount stationery firm who turned out to be dodgy, you'd ask for a box of envelopes and you'd get a box of boxes of envelopes, they'd refuse to take them back and invoice you, even if you did manage to do so, there was a whole forum about them we found out later, they tried it on with all sorts of businesses, surgeries, dentists, once they get a name these kind of people pass it on.

a current one is a card through the door saying they tried to deliver a package and you need to call a number. the number is premium rate and will cost you about £300

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if you have elderly relatives maybe give them a heads up on this