My son has been scammed

[Mk3Spitfire]

eldar said:

I'm genuinely glad to hear that. So why go people get told 'it's civil'?

I assume that a single complaint isn't acted on, but multiples are.

I'll give you a quick example.

Victim "buys" an iPhone off Gumtree. Pays money via bank transfer (I think it was. Could have been Paypal). Phone never turns up.
Work done to locate offender. Arrested, interviewed charged.
One complaint. One offender, one occasion (not multiple offender).

Sometimes it will go through action fraud first, but ultimately will/should be dealt with by police as a fraud.

In this example, there never was a phone in the first place.

[oblio]

Thanks all

I'll get everything into the action fraud website and we'll take it from there.

It's a shame for the lad: he's a good kid, only 17 and a bit naïve, but has now lost his savings

Cheers

[eldar]

Mk3Spitfire said:

I'll give you a quick example.

Victim "buys" an iPhone off Gumtree. Pays money via bank transfer (I think it was. Could have been Paypal). Phone never turns up.
Work done to locate offender. Arrested, interviewed charged.
One complaint. One offender, one occasion (not multiple offender).

Sometimes it will go through action fraud first, but ultimately will/should be dealt with by police as a fraud.

In this example, there never was a phone in the first place.

Good, nice to hear a scammer caught Shame the OP's son didn't get the same service you provide.

[Mk3Spitfire]

eldar said:

Good, nice to hear a scammer caught Shame the OP's son didn't get the same service you provide.

It is satisfying.

In fairness, the OP does say that a leaflet re fraud was given to the boy. This, I imagine was an action fraud leaflet which they have obviously decided to be the first point of contact. They could have perhaps been a little more helpful, but none of us can speak for them I guess, as we weren't there.

[Bigyoke]

Bigends said:

Police no longer investigate this type of fraud i.e. where unknown accounts are used or the offender isnt known - its now action frauds job - they have instant access to the financial institutions records- something Police dont have. Action fraud will trace the 'sellers'account and then send a package out to the relevant force to arrest and deal

Action Fraud do not investigate fraud, they collate reports and will then allocate any cases with viable lines of enquiry to whatever Police force they judge is best placed to investigate, starting with where the suspect is situated. They do not have instant access to Financial records and will not apply for the orders normally required to investigate these reports, they leave that to the Police ( or HMRC etc. etc ).

Police do investigate fraud, they just don't record for Home Office accounting purposes anymore.

[Bigends]

Bigyoke said:

Action Fraud do not investigate fraud, they collate reports and will then allocate any cases with viable lines of enquiry to whatever Police force they judge is best placed to investigate, starting with where the suspect is situated. They do not have instant access to Financial records and will not apply for the orders normally required to investigate these reports, they leave that to the Police ( or HMRC etc. etc ).

Police do investigate fraud, they just don't record for Home Office accounting purposes anymore.

Never said they didnt record them.
Forces generally only record those offences where theres a call for service by the victim-ie crime in progress, known local offender and any offences where a PNC registered item is involved as the NFIB dont have access to PNC.
Police would also deal following any arrests for fraud.
In the OP's case - no call for service so NFIB should deal
In most cases we DO get offenders personal and account details - NFIB investigate the trail of the fraud leaving the final work to Police-we get some pretty comprehensive evidence packs back from them. Agreed Police have to sort out production orders but at least they have the account details against which to apply for the order-something we didnt used to get easily. OK They have simpler processes in place if not instant access to financial institutions records and at least they now have to do it rather than Police sending off reams of DPA forms

Edited by Bigends on Sunday 15th March 19:56

[Bigyoke]

Neither Action Fraud nor the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, who as I'm sure you know are two sides of the same coin, have ANY investigative capacity, that role remains with Police. Even if there is a call for service AF should be informed so they can allocate it a crime number. Arrests, searches etc will be carried out by Police officers from the investigating force. Most AF & NFIB staff are civilians.

[Bigends]

Bigyoke said:

Neither Action Fraud nor the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, who as I'm sure you know are two sides of the same coin, have ANY investigative capacity, that role remains with Police. Even if there is a call for service AF should be informed so they can allocate it a crime number. Arrests, searches etc will be carried out by Police officers from the investigating force. Most AF & NFIB staff are civilians.

How do they get the fraudsters details to pass on to the relevant force by not carrying out some investigation into the matter?

Action fraud is the call centre -NFIB is the investigative arm -I know that.
Yes even if there is a call for service we send an AF referral emphasising we will be dealing.

I was giving a simple lay -guide to how they work- not a thesis on the subject

Edited by Bigends on Sunday 15th March 20:07

[KFC]

oblio said:

It's a shame for the lad: he's a good kid, only 17 and a bit naïve, but has now lost his savings

If he's not very bright then perhaps it would be in everyones interests for parental control of his finances to be in place to save grief like this in the first place?

[Bigyoke]

NFIB are not the investigative arm of anything, they are an Intelligence service, the clue is in the name, they provide intelligence to the Police. As you are clearly an expert you will know that the material supplied by NFIB cannot be used as evidence, the evidence gathering is done by Police officers ( or AFIs ) conducting an investigation.

Any research undertaken by NFIB to identify offenders is not classed as investigation because if it was it would have to be disclosed and normally intelligence doesn't get disclosed.

You stated earlier that AF/NFIB investigate or 'deal' with fraud - they don't. If you want to call sending a DPA to a Bank an investigation that's up to you, but it's not. The info sent out by NFIB may be a good start but it takes a lot more work to turn it into a prosecution.

[Bigends]

Bigyoke said:

NFIB are not the investigative arm of anything, they are an Intelligence service, the clue is in the name, they provide intelligence to the Police. As you are clearly an expert you will know that the material supplied by NFIB cannot be used as evidence, the evidence gathering is done by Police officers ( or AFIs ) conducting an investigation.

Any research undertaken by NFIB to identify offenders is not classed as investigation because if it was it would have to be disclosed and normally intelligence doesn't get disclosed.

You stated earlier that AF/NFIB investigate or 'deal' with fraud - they don't. If you want to call sending a DPA to a Bank an investigation that's up to you, but it's not. The info sent out by NFIB may be a good start but it takes a lot more work to turn it into a prosecution.

Agree totally - the OP and other non cops dont need to know all of this - just the general gist of whats done and what the Police wont deal with at time of initial report. I deal with recording and allocation of frauds every day so I'm aware of what comes back in the intelligence packs following their data matching work and what subsequent action is taken.

Edited by Bigends on Sunday 15th March 20:50

Edited by Bigends on Sunday 15th March 21:02

[oblio]

KFC said:

oblio said:

It's a shame for the lad: he's a good kid, only 17 and a bit naïve, but has now lost his savings

If he's not very bright then perhaps it would be in everyones interests for parental control of his finances to be in place to save grief like this in the first place?

tbf I didn't say he wasn't very bright...only a bit naïve.

We kept control of his finances until he was 17 then as he was working and had passed his driving test and was running a car i.e. growing up, we felt it was best that he started to have this responsibility.

I'm not sure if you have kids KFC, but this is what you do: you try and bring them up so that they join the adult world. As I say, he was naïve...

Rest assured we are now back in control of his savings to make sure that he continues to save so that he can continue to run a car (insurance, servicing, tax etc)

He has definitely learned his lesson but I will check to see if he did lodge his situation with action fraud and if not, he will do.

Cheers

[cheesesliceking]

oblio said:

tbf I didn't say he wasn't very bright...only a bit naïve.

We kept control of his finances until he was 17 then as he was working and had passed his driving test and was running a car i.e. growing up, we felt it was best that he started to have this responsibility.

I'm not sure if you have kids KFC, but this is what you do: you try and bring them up so that they join the adult world. As I say, he was naïve...

Rest assured we are now back in control of his savings to make sure that he continues to save so that he can continue to run a car (insurance, servicing, tax etc)

He has definitely learned his lesson but I will check to see if he did lodge his situation with action fraud and if not, he will do.

Cheers

Ignore KFC, blatant troll with nothing useful to add.

[berlintaxi]

cheesesliceking said:

oblio said:

tbf I didn't say he wasn't very bright...only a bit naïve.

We kept control of his finances until he was 17 then as he was working and had passed his driving test and was running a car i.e. growing up, we felt it was best that he started to have this responsibility.

I'm not sure if you have kids KFC, but this is what you do: you try and bring them up so that they join the adult world. As I say, he was naïve...

Rest assured we are now back in control of his savings to make sure that he continues to save so that he can continue to run a car (insurance, servicing, tax etc)

He has definitely learned his lesson but I will check to see if he did lodge his situation with action fraud and if not, he will do.

Cheers

Ignore KFC, blatant troll with nothing useful to add.

Spot on, hard to view the world like a normal human being when you are so perfect.

[Red Devil]

oblio said:

KFC said:

oblio said:

It's a shame for the lad: he's a good kid, only 17 and a bit naïve, but has now lost his savings

If he's not very bright then perhaps it would be in everyones interests for parental control of his finances to be in place to save grief like this in the first place?

tbf I didn't say he wasn't very bright...only a bit naïve.

We kept control of his finances until he was 17 then as he was working and had passed his driving test and was running a car i.e. growing up, we felt it was best that he started to have this responsibility.

I'm not sure if you have kids KFC, but this is what you do: you try and bring them up so that they join the adult world. As I say, he was naïve...

Rest assured we are now back in control of his savings to make sure that he continues to save so that he can continue to run a car (insurance, servicing, tax etc)

He has definitely learned his lesson but I will check to see if he did lodge his situation with action fraud and if not, he will do.

Cheers

Sorry to hear of your lad's misfortune.

oblio said:

My lad in his naivety, put through 3 separate transactions via the craigslist.org website, to buy some cheap iPhones so that he could sell them on. As this was obviously too good to be true, he didn't wait until the first phone arrived before going through the process of "buying" 2 more

Budding young businessman gains valuable experience the hard way. Please don't curb his entrepreneurial spirit though. I doubt that he will make the same mistake again.

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

I guess if the fraudster is overseas (as they normally are), then Action Fraud or whoever, can't really do anything?

[Mandalore]

How old is/was your son?

[22Rgt]

Mk3Spitfire said:

eldar said:

I'm genuinely glad to hear that. So why go people get told 'it's civil'?

I assume that a single complaint isn't acted on, but multiples are.

I'll give you a quick example.

Victim "buys" an iPhone off Gumtree. Pays money via bank transfer (I think it was. Could have been Paypal). Phone never turns up.
Work done to locate offender. Arrested, interviewed charged.
One complaint. One offender, one occasion (not multiple offender).

Sometimes it will go through action fraud first, but ultimately will/should be dealt with by police as a fraud.

In this example, there never was a phone in the first place.

The above never happened! The sender could just say it hasnt been sent yet/lost in the post/send a tracked parcel loosely taped up with nothing inside and claim its been stolen by postie/courier etc.
There would never be enough evidence to secure a conviction for fraud. This is just another jackanory by yet another plastic policeman..

[KFC]

22Rgt said:

The above never happened! The sender could just say it hasnt been sent yet/lost in the post/send a tracked parcel loosely taped up with nothing inside and claim its been stolen by postie/courier etc.
There would never be enough evidence to secure a conviction for fraud. This is just another jackanory by yet another plastic policeman..

There is some irony in you going on about Jackanory!!

If he's done it to several people then there would clearly be evidence of it being fraud. It just might be hard for anyone else to join the dots, unless the scammer has been particularly stupid. (using same email addresses or phone numbers which turn up in Google searches)

[Mk3Spitfire]

22Rgt said:

The above never happened! The sender could just say it hasnt been sent yet/lost in the post/send a tracked parcel loosely taped up with nothing inside and claim its been stolen by postie/courier etc.
There would never be enough evidence to secure a conviction for fraud. This is just another jackanory by yet another plastic policeman..

And this is another troll story from a wannabe sniper who clearly never made the cut...hey ho