"There are tricksters and conmen trying to take our savings from us." "Every year, a shocking 3.2 million people fall for their devious and ingenious scams." "Coming up: the dangers of falling in love over the internet." "You feel like you've let people down." "You've let your family down." "Plus we look at the scourge of scam mail and see just how it can devastate someone's life." "I would gladly have given them everything, just to get my mother back." "They stole her from me." "I'm here to tell you what the conman doesn't want you to know." "How to stay one step ahead of the game and not get scammed." "If, as the song says, "love is all around"" "then why can it be so hard to find?" "The internet can offer the answer, but scammers have cottoned on to this, and over the last few years, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, SOCA, have seen a big rise in online romance scams." "This is a tens of millions of pounds' problem for the United Kingdom." "Very typically, what happens is somebody will be either contacted either because they've gone on to a website a dating site, a lonely hearts site, something like that, and they'll be contacted by somebody who will start to befriend them." "But it's not just dating websites that are used by scammers to close in on potential targets." "Social networking sites used to just be for the technologically savvy." "But not any more." "They're for everyone." "And that includes scam artists." "Your hobbies, your beliefs, your interests, they're all things that a scam artist can use to build up a picture of their next target." "32-year-old Marie is single, and had just started looking into internet dating when, out of the blue, a man calling himself Nelson contacted her on Facebook." "Hiya!" "Marie?" "Ooh, hello!" "Who's that?" "That's Penny." "Is she OK out?" "Yeah." "Penny!" "Come on, we've got to hear a story, Penny." "Just a general message, saying what his name was and he was a US soldier and he just noticed me and thought he'd like to start chatting to me." "And if I was interested." "Nelson told Marie he was an American soldier serving at their army base in Nigeria." "What Marie didn't know was that he was a sophisticated scam artist and that she was well and truly in his sights." "They often say "I'm in the army." Often the American army." "And they're based in Iraq or Afghanistan." "This immediately raises the emotional content." "That's exciting." "And as that rises, so your defences go down a bit." "When scouting for targets, conmen are looking for the chinks in somebody's armour." "Something to exploit." "Personal information on sites such as Facebook gives them all they need to establish common ground with their victims." "What information did you put on Facebook?" "What was available for people to see?" "Being single, female, Christian." "He could see that I was single and a Christian." "That was probably the main thing and the two main things he used." "They seem like two fairly harmless pieces of information, but to the scammer it was what he needed." "As the pair began exchanging messages, he said he was also a Christian and even quoted passages from the bible, all music to Marie's ears." "How quickly did things move?" "It went so quickly." "Things happened really fast." "It all felt so real and so right." "It was everything that I'd wanted." "He was a Christian, a man of law, as it was." "A protector." "Yeah." "A defender." "Yeah." "When it's a scam, they rapidly fall in love with you." "They rapidly want to meet you." "These are the warning signs to look for." "It's not a natural progression of any sort of relationship which has started like that." "Nelson certainly wasn't playing hard to get." "He quickly moved out of the confines of the internet, chatting to Marie on the phone, the scammer's favourite method of communication." "There's no record of what's said and you can use the cost of the call to get on to the real subject, asking for money." "Can you describe how he'd speak to you?" "You're speaking to supposedly an American." "How did he sound?" "When I spoke to him, he sounded American." "There was a second accent which freaked me out a bit." "It sounded a bit Spanish." "But he said his mother was Mexican and his father was American." "Not unusual for me." "My mother's French, my father's British, I'm South African." "So that wasn't unusual or weird." "So I just went, "Oh, OK." I didn't question it." "Smitten, Marie was being sucked in fast." "The time for Nelson to get down to business." "They will invariably ask for some sort of financial assistance." "Maybe straight up for money." "They might ask for money to help with a visa." "It might be, "Can you send me £30 to charge my mobile phone so that I can ring you?"" "But it escalates." "Sure enough, following the scammer's text book to a T," "Nelson caught Marie off-guard one day." "He said he was really down." "He said he and fellow soldiers were unable to get into their bank accounts and that Marie could sort this out if she's just send him some money." "I kind of could see where it was headed so I tried to divert as much as I could by saying," ""The army can't leave you guys without being able to access your money." ""They should give you money."" ""No, they're not." "You don't understand." "We're in the middle of a a war zone here."" "Marie didn't cough up the cash right away." "Suspicious, she decided to do some digging of her own." "So you're thinking, "I'm going to do some homework."" "I researched into the US army, their badges." "I noticed on the photo it didn't say Nelson, it said something else." "But it was too crinkled for me to work out the full name." "So I questioned things like that." "I questioned his rank." "Because the rank on his hat wasn't what he was saying either." "For every question, Nelson had a ready-made answer." "He explained that in one snap he was wearing another soldier's jacket, and the one showing a different rank was an old photo." "Nelson then used Marie's own suspicions to pressure her into trusting him and committing even further to the relationship." "He went on a lot about me trusting him." "Trust was a big issue in our conversations that he kept bringing up." ""You've got to trust me." "Don't you trust me?"" ""Why don't you trust me?" "You need to trust me."" "I felt like I was backed in a corner." "I was badly financially off." "I thought, "What do I do?" "I can't leave him."" "Eventually, Marie caved in and sent £100 for Nelson to pick up through the Western Union cash transfer service." "I thought, "Right, this will be it."" "If I didn't hear from him again, after this money, then I knew that that's what it was." "So, in a weird way, you sending him money was a test of your trust in him?" "Yes, that's exactly how I'd describe it to someone." "Nelson now had Marie where he wanted her." "With the promise of more money, he wasn't going anywhere." "He called back, full of gratitude." "Marie started to believe that this was the real deal." "I told my mum." "For the first time in any relationship I've ever had, she was excited." "I think my mum wanted to believe this was happening." "It had happened for my parents." "They were engaged within three weeks and have been married for 35 years." "So you looked at your parents' relationship and thought," ""It's not so crazy, because it worked for them." Yeah." "Another week went by." "Nelson decided it was time to ramp up this scam." "He told Marie he wanted to come and see her." "But there was one teeny-weeny catch." "He said he'd been given leave but he couldn't access his account." "But I thought when he said he'd got leave and he was coming that he'd sorted that out." "I didn't expect him to want me to help him again." "Nelson was really going for the jackpot." "He asked Marie to send £700 to pay for his plane ticket." "This was crunch time." "I said, "I haven't got that kind of money." "I just don't."" "And he got, at one point, really frustrated and I went, "Don't get upset with me because I'm trying." ""You need to understand it's a lot of money." ""I'm worried and scared about sending this kind of money."" "He was like, "I'm sorry, I know." "I really care about you." ""We'll sort it out and it'll all be fine."" "So I stopped direct debits." "I stopped any action in or out of my bank account." "I stopped everything." "I went and drew the money out." "Went down to Western Union," "Even the lady at Western Union said to me," ""Are you OK with sending this?" And I went, "I'm not." ""I'm not OK with it." "It's a lot of money."" "But you carried on anyway." "I felt like it was a test." "It was just testing." "Again, it was about my trust." "Having to prove my trust." "It was a test if this was right." "And if I was being tested." "And then I thought, he'll do a runner, surely after that." "But he didn't." "He was still there." "And he got closer to booking." "Said he'd booked his ticket." "To prove his commitment," "Nelson even sent through a supposed confirmation of his flight details." "Tell me what your feelings were at that stage." "I got more and more excited and we got more and more excited and spoke up to the day he was going to be leaving." "But in an unbelievably cruel trick used by scammers to raise the stakes," "Marie received some shocking news." "I got a text message at 11 o'clock at night to say that he'd been in a really bad accident and that he was in critical condition." "That's a massive shock." "It was." "You've gone from being really excited about a new life with this guy to suddenly having terrible pictures of him on a hospital bed." "I couldn't talk." "I was just frantically trying to get the internet up to get phone numbers for this Nigerian hospital to ring and trying to find numbers for the American army and I was just frantic." "When she finally got hold of them, the American army gave her the hard facts." "They had no record of her soldier Nelson." "He simply didn't exist." "Marie was starting to realise she'd been tricked." "But the people behind this elaborate scam weren't about to give up." "Sometimes these people will say, "Yes, I'm sorry about that," ""it was a fraud and I'm not that American soldier." ""I am this person but I'm very poor." "But actually, I do really love you."" "And they say, "See - he really does like me." And you think, "Please, don't do this!" "That's not right."" "A man calling himself Paul and claiming to be Nelson's doctor in the critical care ward, started sending texts to Marie throughout the night." "When he rang in the morning, she heard a familiar voice at the end of the line." "I recognised the guy's voice to be like a Mexican accent, but no American accent." "I said to him, "I recognise your voice." ""I know who I'm talking to."" "He went, "I'm sorry, madam, but I've never spoken to you before."" "Yes, it was our conman, still trying it on." "Still pretending to be a doctor, he emailed asking for money to help with treatment costs." "But for Marie, the penny had well and truly dropped." "There was no doctor." "And there wasn't, and never had been, a soldier called Nelson who loved her." "Marie was conned out of £800, but she's not alone." "Others have been stung for much higher amounts by romance scams." "We have had a victim that's lost nearly a quarter of a million pounds." "It's a global racket." "The challenge for SOCA is to try and find the people behind it." "The real perpetrators can be anywhere." "They are sitting at the end of a laptop plugged into a Wi-Fi system." "We have managed to devise methods where we can intercept the links between the criminal and victim." "We do have a particular problem from West Africa." "But we know that it comes from Eastern Europe as well." "And in West Africa, we have arrested several individuals who are key to this including one who was living in a house worth £1 million and he had over £1 million going through his bank account, just from UK victims." "But for the victims of these robbing Romeos, such as Marie, it's the emotional cost rather than the money that's hardest to bear." "You feel like you've let people down." "You've let your family down." "When my mum found out, she was devastated." "And she..." "Sorry." "Marie, you haven't done anything wrong." "You know that?" "All you've done is trust somebody because their business, and it's a horrible, cruel business, is to gain people's trust because they're very good at it." "He was!" "And you're so lovely!" "There's no reason why you shouldn't have a great fella at some point." "This is nothing to do with that." "You know?" "It's all right." "SOCA and other agencies are starting to make real progress in tackling these scams." "But they're reliant on victims like Marie who have the courage to come forward and tell their story." "We need to know how much of it is happening, who is doing it." "We can only get there by starting at the very bottom and that is when a victim becomes a victim." "So how can you avoid being suckered into the world of romance scams?" "The first thing I say to anybody in anything like this," "I would say, number one, "Don't send any money."" "It may sound obvious, but no matter how much these people tug at your heartstrings, how much it feels like a real connection, they only want one thing." "Secondly, never give your own details out." "That means mobile phone number, address and email." "Also check your privacy settings when using sites like Facebook." "Many dating websites actually look for scams, but they only see what's happening on their own site." "So be wary if someone wants to chat elsewhere." "To repeat..." "Third, don't send any money." "I know it was number one, but it's that important!" "I'd say if you were contacted by somebody through the internet, on Facebook, or just a normal chat site or internet dating, and you don't feel right about it, talk to family, speak to friends." "Listen to their advice." "Anything that doesn't feel right, use your head, not your heart." "No." "No!" "Junk mail!" "I mean, it may be annoying, but mostly it's harmless." "But then there's scam mail, completely different." "In one year in the UK alone, we got scammed out of £3.5 billion thanks to scam mail." "And this is how it typically works." "A letter comes through the door with exciting news you've won a huge cash prize." "The letter suggests all you need to do is pay a small fee and you'll receive your winnings." "So you pay the fee but your cash prize never comes." "Instead, the scammers will just send you more and more letters." "Scam mail, or mass marketing fraud as it's also known, is often targeted at elderly people." "The effects can be all-consuming." "These shocking images were filmed by Marilyn Baldwin." "Her mother Jessica was tormented by scam mail for five years." "This distressing footage shows her in the grip of the scam." "My mother was first drawn into this five years before she died." "She received a letter telling her she'd won a competition." "All she had to do to claim it was send off a small fee, which my mother did, and as a result got put on what's called a "suckers" list." "This list got sold to other criminals all over the world and she got bombarded with scam mail." "The scam mail started to increase until probably about a year down the line, or maybe not that, she was getting around 30 pieces a day." "The house started filling up with scam mail." "It was everywhere - cupboards, drawers, the shed." "Under the bed." "Everywhere." "Marilyn wanted people to see this footage to show the devastating impact scam mail can have." "The contents of these letters ranged from fake prize draw competitions to supposed clairvoyants asking for cash in exchange for good luck trinkets." "We tried to stop her and explained that this mail wasn't genuine." "But she just couldn't see it." "It was almost like they'd trapped her." "She was in this fictitious world that they'd created with the mail." "She'd got this air about her that, "I've won the money" ""and it's just a matter of time before it comes."" "She actually thought she was rich, in a strange way, even though she hadn't received anything." "Jessica remained under the spell of the scam artists until just before she died in 2007." "It's difficult to say how much money she lost because it's really untraceable." "She was sending cash, postal orders, she was making money transfers." "I always say it could have been anything up to £50,000 but I couldn't really give a figure." "But it's not the money that's the main issue." "It's actually the emotional distress that this mail causes." "When my mum was going through this I could have gladly given them the house, everything." "They could have taken everything, just to get my mother back." "They stole her from me." "Mass marketing fraud is a nationwide problem." "In Portsmouth, Trading Standards Officers Laura Small and Holly Shelbourne recently seized a huge haul of scam mail which they're now trying to wade through." "These two boxes here are completely unsorted mail." "These other boxes are sorted into categories." "It's a shocking amount of mail, and all these boxes were found in one private house belonging to a pensioner called Mrs Knox." "When it comes to mass marketing scams, most of our victims are socially isolated." "Unfortunately, they don't have friends or family visiting every day." "It's just carers come to see them." "That's when they fall through the net." "They can't check with anybody to make sure they're not replying to things they shouldn't be." "When Laura and Holly first visited Mrs Knox's home, they were stunned at what they saw." "As soon as we walked into the house, you couldn't get in the hallway because they were all to the right-hand side." "She could no longer get her shopping trolley down there, which is her walking aid." "When she started replying to the letters and sending off money," "Mrs Knox found herself on a dreaded suckers list, just like Jessica." "Hello, Mrs Knox." "Hello." "How are you?" "Not too bad." "Hello." "I've never won anything in my life, and the fact that I was told I'd won something," "I thought, "Oh, great!" "It's going to help me out of a mess."" "So you were in need of the money, weren't you?" "I was in need of it." "Yes." "They said to me something about you've won so much money." ""If you send a bit to cover the costs of dealing with it," ""we'll send you your money." OK." "Unfortunately they didn't, not unless they used invisible cheques, because I never saw them!" "Oh, dear!" "It's estimated that in the past few years," "Mrs Knox has given away £2,000 to the scammers." "I've got my pension and nothing else." "To think I chucked away the money when I badly needed it..." "I'm a right sucker that way!" "The thing about investigating it is finding out where they're from and who are sending the mailings." "There are many different perpetrators." "They don't all come from one person." "There are thousands of companies." "Some of the messages sent to Jessica and to Mrs Knox were blatant examples of illegal scam mail." "But it's not always so clear cut." "There are companies that send out mass marketing letters that use clever wording and small print to try and stay on the right side of the law." "In 2009, a lady called Doreen was sent this letter by a firm called UK Incentives and Promotions Ltd." "At first glance, it could have given the impression that she'd won £625,000, by using words like confirmed, guaranteed and sole recipient." "But on closer inspection, the letter was simply inviting Doreen to enter a prize draw and there was no guarantee of winning anything." "Doreen decided to report it to East Sussex Trading Standards Officer Tom Cook." "What made you report this to us in the first place?" "Quite honestly, it was too good to be true." "What about this." "Here it says they've been conducting a nationwide search and you have been identified." "Lucky you(!" ")" "It's not a mistake." "You are confirmed and guaranteed to receive £625,000." "To enter the prize, Doreen had to buy a £20 watch." "She wasn't the sort of person taken in by this kind of misleading marketing." "But she was reporting it to us because she was concerned about other people receiving a letter and falling for it and would be misled." "And Tom agreed." "He thought the letter was highly deceptive and designed to confuse people into buying the £20 watch." "He began investigating and found that unlike many mass-marketing firms who are based abroad, UK Incentives and Promotions Ltd were in Stockport near Manchester." "We contacted the local Trading Standards." "They had been in contact with the company." "But they had not been able to prevent a second wave of letters being sent out." "The company had already been warned about the wording of their letters and although they'd made some changes, the mail was still highly misleading." "Tom decided he'd try to get them in court." "Later, we'll see how letters like this deceive people into parting with cash." "They make out that's how they've selected you." "It's clever." "Really, really clever." "Sinister but clever." "And Tom has his day in court." "We're prepared to go to court to tell you to stop doing this." "Each and every one of us is at risk from being scammed." "It doesn't matter about your age, your job, your situation." "They will tailor-make something that's just for you." "So how do you know when you're being targeted by a scam and how do you avoid it?" "Well, that's where a bit of inside knowledge can be very valuable." "We've spoken to some leading authorities on fraud to build up a picture of what type of person falls for what type of scam." "We've created some made-up, but realistic, characters to show you the results." "Today's character is a mum, and like many people in the UK, is struggling with debt." "Mothers are very protective of their children." "A scammer plays on that." "What would it mean for your children if you lost the house?" "If we're threatened with loss, we'll often take big risks to avoid that loss." "You may know someone just like our worried mum." "You may even be her." "If so, you could be a prime target for the debt management scam." "Here's how and why it works." "Our worried mum sees an advert, often in a national newspaper, for a company that claims it can write off most of her debt." "But a criminal gang is behind it and they want to draw in people like her who are desperate for a way to get on top of their debt problem." "Debt management expert Lee Lester is fed up with these fake firms tainting the reputation of his industry." "These fraudsters will make outlandish claims in their adverts." ""We can write off 90p in the pound." Impossible." "If it was the case, 90% of the population that are in debt would be taking up this offer." "Once they've got our worried parent on the phone, the crooks will try to persuade her that if she sends them an advance fee, they'll talk to her creditors and get a lot of what she owes knocked down or written off." "Our mum wouldn't have thought this was possible and the relief at this solution means she doesn't think straight." "Scammers often rely on our ability to fool ourselves and to suffer various illusions." "We've had clients who've paid over money to consolidation companies to the tune of 800 to £900 only to find out that no money's been passed on to the creditors themselves and subsequently the client finds themselves in a worse situation than when they started." "Even though they want to get their hands on her money, the crooks know it's better to play the long game." "Our parent isn't stupid, and if everything seems too easy, she may get suspicious." "They decide to play hard to get and say they may not be able to help her out after all." "On the one hand, they want to close the deal as soon as possible and they apply pressure to make that happen." "On the other hand, there may be points where they're drawing things out to deliberately draw you deeper in." "One way is to make you feel like it's not necessarily the case that you'll get access to this opportunity and that you have to qualify." "It's all part of the process of hooking you in." "They tell the worried mum they'll call back with a decision." "They leave her with an anxious wait." "Then they ring her back with good news." "Her application has been successful." "She's so grateful, her guard is now down and she stops questioning what they tell her." "Before she knows it, she's paid an up-front fee and the scammers have successfully lured another debt-ridden parent into their trap." "What scammers know above all is that if they can motivate you sufficiently, you will do the job of persuading yourself that's it's a genuine story." "You'll fill in the gaps for yourself." "So, desperate to ease her debt problem and provide for her kids, our worried parent has done what many would do in the same situation." "With the promise of an escape from her debt nightmare, she handed over cash." "If you or someone near you is in a similar situation, this is what you need to know so you can choose one of the many reputable debt management firms." "Do your homework on the company." "Any good debt management company will sit with a prospective client and give them what options are available." "If someone is giving you a hard sell and it looks like it's too good to be true, nine times out of ten, it will be too good to be true." "Your first call should be to an organisation like Consumer Direct or the Citizens' Advice Bureau." "As for our cash-strapped mum, however miserable her position seems to be, there's always hope and there are plenty of people to help her." "Debt is a horrible thing to go through." "However, it's only a glitch in your life, it's not the rest of your life." "Remember, scams are out there for anyone from any walk of life." "All you need to do is stay on your guard, and hopefully you won't get scammed." "Scam mail has been a growing problem in the UK." "These nasty letters appear on the mat and say you've won a huge amount of cash." "But they can only release it to you if you send in a fee first." "You'll never get your hands on the prize, but they'll string you along with more post asking for more money." "And the story of Jessica Look shows just how bad things can get." "In the last few years of her life, she was besieged by scam mail and this disturbing footage filmed by her daughter Marilyn showed the effect it had on both Jessica and those around her." "Marilyn wanted the video to be shown in the hope it may prevent others going through the same thing." "To date, we know of five suicides related to scam mail." "I'm convinced, totally convinced, that scam mail contributed to my mother's death." "I can't say it killed her, as she died of pneumonia, but it did contribute." "Once she'd replied to a few of these letters," "Jessica's card was marked and her details were sold on to other criminal gangs across Europe." "She was then deluged with even more deceptive mail." "She was then obsessing about this mail." "She couldn't miss one." "If she missed one, she'd write to the scammers and apologise, saying, "Can I have another week?" "I've got no more money."" "In Portsmouth, Trading Standards Officers Laura and Holly found pensioner Mrs Knox in the same state after she'd also got caught up in the vicious cycle or responding to and receiving yet more malicious mail." "With so many boxes full of scam letters piled-up in her house, she found it difficult to move around." "Any more orders come in, they can get lost." "It's just one ruddy great con." "I'd like to be alongside some of them and tell them what I thought of them!" "Mrs Knox and Jessica were receiving up to 30 letters a day." "Sifting through the mail reveals the devious methods used to relieve people of their cash." "It's been checked and verified by the NLC dispersement officer." "It's authority." "You don't think it's someone to not trust." "False testimonials from fictitious winners." "They look hand-typed on an old-fashioned typewriter." "It's got a fake post-it note in someone's handwriting." "Anything that you open, you think, "Oh, I've won!"" "It's a prize certificate." "You've got a mind-dazzling amount of money." "Seven million pounds!" "Your name's in lights." "These colours, jazzy letters, fonts, they draw you in." "Most will be deadlined as well. "Urgent."" "Four days to reply." "It takes away your thought processes and you react quickly and don't consult friends or family." "You know, just clever." "Really clever." "Sinister but clever." "At the time of her mother's problem, Marilyn didn't know who to turn to." "Suspecting the issue was far more widespread than being reported, she started the Think Jessica campaign." "She's helped to set up events across the country to let people know." "These criminals are sneaking in through the letterbox." "There are elderly people behind closed doors being attacked and being mugged every day." "If these people were being mugged on the street, there'd be an outcry." "Fortunately, Laura and Holly have got to Mrs Knox in time to make a difference." "To solve Mrs Knox' scam mail problem, we signed her to the Mail Preference Service and Telephone Preference Service." "They are like filtering systems that help filter through the junk mail that comes through and junk telephone calls as well." "For Marilyn and all the agencies tackling scam mail, raising awareness is crucial." "At events like this in London, people have the opportunity to talk about similar experiences they've had." "It's almost led to a divorce between her and her husband." "They're in their 80s." "They've been married for years." "Happily married." "This has led to a lot of anxiety." "None of us have been sure how to go about it." "Seeing this is a shock, but it's also kind of a relief." "It means I know that other people are suffering, it's not just us and not just her." "As well as blatant scam mail, there are also companies sending out mass-marketing material they believe is legitimate." "Trading Standards Officer Tom Cook was on the trail of one of these companies because he felt the letters they sent out were highly misleading." "This is what you were actually buying for your £20." "They had bought it for 2.85 per unit." "So they're basically selling a very cheap watch at quite a good profit." "Tom was able to investigate UK Incentives and Promotions Ltd as they were based in Britain." "He started legal proceedings against them." "But weeks into the investigation, the company went into liquidation, owing £280,000 - mostly to the tax man." "The company was our initial target, if you like." "They disappeared, so we were left with going after individuals." "Tom continued pursuing two of the key figures involved with the business, the company director and the marketing manager." "He wrote letters to the two of them asking them to stop sending out misleading and deceptive mail." "The company director replied and agreed to Tom's demands." "What we hadn't got was the marketing manager." "He hadn't responded in a similar way." "So he had not, at this point, told us he'd stop dealing with this type of letter." "So in November 2009 they took the marketing manager to court and won." "He was told to sign a general undertaking that he would stop sending out misleading material for a minimum of one year." "So if he had carried on and disregarded the court's order, then he could go to prison, so that was a result." "It was Doreen's original complaint about the company's scam letter that sparked the investigation." "Well done, Doreen!" "If she'd replied, this is what her £20 would have got her." "There." "Oh, dear!" "That is what they were selling you." "With the size of my bone structure, I'd be lucky if it went round my wrist!" "It's not a particularly nice watch." "Tom also gives her the good news." "This is the outcome." "They've given a promise to the court that they will obey the law, and they understand if they don't, they could go to prison." "We asked representatives of UK Incentives and Promotions Ltd to comment, and this is what their former marketing manager had to say." "The types of letters received by Jessica and Mrs Knox from foreign countries were deceptive." "Some could amount to fraud." "This is being taken ever more seriously." "The Metropolitan Police has set up a special unit," "Operation Sterling, to deal solely with this type of crime, both at home and abroad." "It is difficult, but it's not impossible." "We're working with law enforcement agencies throughout the world and also postal providers throughout the world and we're having significant successes." "Earlier this year, we undertook some enforcement activity which had a major impact reducing some of those letters to victims by two-thirds." "It's a very long road." "We've turned a corner, but we're not at the end of the road." "This needs to be ongoing." "If we drop our defences, the criminals will home in so we need to keep this hostile environment and keep them out." "For more information about the Mail and Telephone Preference Service, and advice about scams:" "Scammers are constantly coming up with new and clever ways to get at our cash." "So it's important to know what are the latest scams out there that could affect you." "Today, we're looking at scams where conmen pretend to be from a government department." "Cheeky little tinkers!" "We've got fraud reports from people pretending to be from HMRC, Ministry of Justice officials." "Talk me through the Justice Ministry." "Why would they be pretending to send me money back." "What could I have done?" "One scam we've seen is saying that you're a model citizen and you're to be rewarded for the good life you're living." "I've always said that." "I've been exemplary, to be honest!" "Yeah." "As a result, you're entitled to a £500 reward for your good service." "About right. "We can secure this." "We're acting on behalf of the Ministry of Justice." ""Please pay us £50 now and we will send you this money you're entitled to."" "However nice you are, there is no such thing as a good citizen award or any other award from the Ministry of Justice." "Maybe there should be, but there isn't." "Sorry, it's a scam." "HMRC, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs." "Yes." "How does that scam work?" "The same principles." "They are saying you've overpaid your taxes." ""We have looked into this" ""and we've determined that you're entitled to a tax rebate" ""of £5,000." ""We are acting on your behalf." "We will do all the paperwork for you" ""and we will transfer £5,000 to your account." ""All we need is an administration fee."" "Anyone who's ever had any dealings with HMRC will know you don't get anything genuinely from them." "Again, it would be wrong to say you don't get things back." "There are accountants who get money back for people and individuals get money back." "We can all overpay our taxes." "But the point is," "HMRC deal with you directly." "They don't do it through an agent." "And they certainly don't ask for fees in advance." "If you are entitled to a refund," "HMRC will never call or email you." "They'll notify you with an official letter through the post." "You can be sure that conmen and fraudsters will keep coming up with new and sophisticated ways of getting your cash." "But armed with a bit of knowledge, you can stay one step ahead." "Stay safe." "See you next time." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd"