Matthew Noad and Clive Griston’s victims included a blind 89-year-old man, and an 87-year-old retired teacher, who both lost almost £100,000 of their savings. The scammers have been jailed for nearly five years after an investigation by the City of London Police. Between 2005 and 2010 Noad and Griston persuaded hundreds of investors to buy […]
Month: April 2014
Police suspect fraud at bankrupt Air Finland
A criminal investigation has been launched into the bankruptcy estate of Air Finland, commercial broadcaster MTV reported on Friday. The leisure-flight airline abruptly went out of business nearly two years ago, leaving thousands of creditors. According to MTV, Eastern Uusimaa Police are investigating a range of suspected crimes including aggravated accounting fraud. The broadcaster says […]
Scam attacks target World Cup ticket buyers
Football fans face five main threats from cyber scammers ahead of this summer’s World Cup, internet experts have warned. Illegal ticket touts, fake England shirts and unofficial Fifa apps that could infect devices have already been detected two months before the tournament kicks off in Brazil. Link to article
Holiday villa fraud
In May last year we used the HomeAway property rental website to book a two-week holiday in Barbados, departing in February. The apartment was owned by a British woman who lives on the island. We received email confirmation that the weeks we wanted were still available and were asked to transfer £945 into the account […]
Don’t Let DDoS’ get your site down
Remember life before social media? How quiet and content we seemed to be? How the only place we got our information was from the local news or cable outlet? Maybe a phone call, or via email? Today however, we seem to be inundated with information, with raw unfiltered data, left to our thoughts and perceptions […]
Over 60 % of fraud is data driven identity crime
CIFAS – the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service warns that six out of every ten frauds recorded to the CIFAS database in 2013 were dependent on the abuse of identity details. As previously revealed in this year’s Fraudscape report, the use of fictitious identities or the abuse of identity details to obtain a product or service […]
Holiday Extras investigates security breach
Holiday Extras is investigating how the email addresses of nearly 5,000 of its customers were wrongly shared online. It is contacting 4,852 customers to tell them about the security breach, which it blamed on a mistake by one of its marketing partners. In a note to its customers, Holiday Extras assured them that their payment […]
Property fraud victim criticises sentence
A man swindled out of almost £50,000 in a Spanish property fraud has criticised the length of the sentence given to the woman who stole his money. Chris Faloon handed over £48,000 as part-payment for an apartment that he thought he had bought. But when he went to inspect the property, the real owner was […]
Most wanted men in Cyprus revealed
A new search has been launched to find some of the UK’s most-wanted fugitives thought to be hiding in Cyprus. Christakis Philippou, 70, also known as Christakis Chrysostomou, is wanted by the Met Police after he was convicted of being involved in scams in which travel agency businesses were used to defraud 20,000 people Link […]
Heartbleed bug: which passwords should you change?
The Heartbleed bug is thought to have affected two thirds of web servers worldwide. A web encryption flaw known as the ‘Heartbleed’ bug has made headlines this week, after it emerged that attackers could exploit the flaw to steal passwords, credit card details, encryption keys and other sensitive data, without leaving any trace. Link to […]
70 arrested in action day tackling airline fraud
On 8 and 9 April 2014 law enforcement agencies from across the world, supported by the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) at Europol, joined forces with the airline, travel and credit card industries in the largest ever attack upon online fraud and illegal immigration. Rapid increases in Internet-facilitated crime have left millions of innocent people affected […]
Travel firm used as front to launder £84k
A travel agency and money transfer business was used as a front to launder more than £84,000 cash, which was found stuffed into Tesco carrier bags. Fly London Travel in Preston, owned by businessman Salauddin Patel, was under observation in May 2012, after officers from the Organised Crime Division monitored text messages they believed to […]
Agent convicted of fraud told to expect prison
A travel agent who stole thousands of pounds from the family-run business where she worked has been told to expect a prison sentence after being convicted by a jury. A jury of eight men and four women found Belinda Traves guilty of three counts of fraud and three of theft, totalling £13,302. Link to article
Call centre boss jailed over Microsoft PC virus scam
Trading standards staff in York have won a landmark case after successfully prosecuting the man behind a Microsoft computer scam which tricks customers into paying for free anti-virus software. Link to article
Police make dawn raid on car fraud gang
Police made a dawn raid on four houses which were home to a Romanian ‘car fraud gang’, and seized £30,000 in cash and a top-of-the-range BMW from the house at the centre of their £1 million scam. Link to article
Help tackle cyber crime
The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) based in the City of London Police has today called upon advertisers and brand holders to continue to support its work to tackle Intellectual Property crime following the launch of its Infringing Website List (IWL). The IWL, the first of its kind to be developed, sets out to […]
Leaders of cheque scam gang jailed
The gang cashed fraudulent cheques at pawnbrokers and cheque cashing agencies in Liverpool and surrounding areas. Some of the 26 members allowed fraudulent cheques to be paid in to their bank accounts. Link to article
Fight against credit card fraud
The Home Office today unveiled plans to fight criminal gangs responsible for steep rises in UK credit and debit card fraud. A new police unit will be launched on Monday as a two-year pilot scheme to focus on card counterfeiting, which has become the UK’s worst type of card fraud. Link to article
Banks should treat card fraud victims better
More than 1.5 million people have cash stolen from credit and debit cards every year, with one in ten wrongly denied a refund by banks. Thousands of victims of card fraud wrongly denied refunds could finally get their money back from banks that try to avoid paying compensation, it has emerged. Link to article
Tourist Scams
Few things are going to cause you stress on a trip abroad, like getting cheated, duped, taken advantage of or just plain screwed over. When we travel, we often let our guard down, because we’re curious about people in our host country, we want to be liked, and we want to believe that we’ll be […]