Fraud: Why conmen are getting away with their crimes - and escaping justice

Despite economic fraud accounting for more than 40 per cent of all crime, outraged victims claim the police have let them down by neglecting to deter fraudsters for taking their money, leaving them with botched shoddy unfinished jobs, their homes exposed to the elements, gardens strewn with rubble, and their family finances in tatters.

NOW READ: Portsmouth couple set to lose £45,000 after being targeted by fraudsters

Streetwise has growing concerns about residents routinely contacting the column expressing anger and frustration about what they see as ducking responsibility for bringing fraud offenders to justice and failing to carry out all but a token number of fraud investigations.

Typically, several readers contacted the column in February accusing a Hampshire based registered company of raking in advanced payments from them of £100,000 for condemned botched unfinished work, liquidating the business to dodge debts, and setting up a similar named company to resume dodgy trading practices.

Despite reverting to social media to share their nightmare experiences, they were horror-struck by the failure of the police and trading standards to crack down on serial home improvement fraudsters and rather insist on engaging with reporting procedures that led them up a blind alley.

Rather than evaluating the psychological and financial harm they’d experienced and appropriately investigating, they were referred by the Hampshire police to the national crime reporting agency, Action Fraud, which simply gave them a crime number and an automatically generated dismissive letter.

Many victims who reported to Action Fraud told Streetwise they were unaware they were calling a private company employed by the City of London police to record fraud and were not responsible for investigating offences. Their update enquiries invariably resulted in the phone repeatedly put down on them or criminal activity dismissed as a civil matter.

Action Fraud receives on average 344,000 crime reports annually which are passed to a National Fraud Intelligence Bureau database. The Bureau uses a computer software programme predominately designed to identify and check for reports with links and patterns in offending. As a result, a very small number of fraud incidents filter down to the police for individual investigation resulting in only minimal insignificant prosecutions.

Professor Mark Button, co-director of the Centre for Cyber and Economic Crime at the University of Portsmouth, said he wasn’t surprised that trusting outraged fraud victims were increasingly turning to the media to protest about being ripped off by fraudsters. He condemned the inadequate police response to economic crime and the experience of victims who suffer mental anguish and despair at rogues getting away with defrauding them out of thousands of pounds with impunity.

Although a step in the right direction, he remained critical of a government crime plan for falling far short on the realisation of the impact and scale of the challenge. The plan promised the formation of a new 400 special investigator fraud squad, more support for victims, an increase in arrests and prosecutions, and implementation of a previous policy promise to scrap the disgraced Action Fraud reporting service.

He said: ‘Fraud is the most common crime at over 40 per cent, and that is just individuals and excludes businesses, but less than two per cent of resources are dedicated to it. There just aren’t enough investigators looking into fraud cases and consequently most don’t get investigated.’

Hampshire police confirmed that Action Fraud was the first port of call for reporting fraudulent issues so that trends and investigative opportunities could be publicised to ensure others were warned of fraudulent activity. Similar justification was circulated by Trading Standards who insisted victims should initially report rogue trading to Citizens’ Advice.

A police spokesperson acknowledged fraud was widespread complex crime that can have a devastating impact on individuals and businesses. Primary priorities included victim care, disrupting offenders, and educating the public to fraudulent activity.

The constabulary’s economic crime unit was responsible for managing the screened fraud reports referred from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau to confirm the type of scam offence and identify other agencies apart from the police who were responsible for various aspects of regulatory law enforcement.

They also took part in national weeks of action where arrests were made after officers had listened to victims’ crime concerns and committed resources to disrupting fraudsters.

Although Hampshire and Portsmouth trading standards expressed similar views, they didn’t beat about the bush when they asserted the £100bn slashed from local authority budgets over the last decade had left them struggling to provide adequate consumer protection and public services.

A Hampshire officer told Streetwise that the money allocated to trading standards by the council to protect individual residents had plummeted. Their powers to investigate fraud had crumbled away and it was doubtful if the service could survive the inevitable savage personnel and financial cuts.

The Chartered Trading Standards Institute represents trading standards professionals working for local authorities. Chief executive John Herriman pulled no punches when he said that trading standards capacity was at risk of being depleted to a level where consumers would be insufficiently protected and increasingly exposed to risk.

He said: ‘We are acutely aware of the issues facing local authority trading standards services across the country. The decade of resource cuts and an ongoing challenging budgetary environment has resulted in substantial reductions in capacity that impact on officers’ ability to protect consumers. Our specific concern is that consumers have nowhere to go to resolve issues with goods and services they have purchased, resulting in their exposure to significant detriment.’

As the banks have identified the most common type of fraud after card fraud involves advance fee purchases and the serious issues with the fraud reporting system, Hampshire police were accused by our victims of the bodge builder of inconsistency and looking for excuses not to investigate.

Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Donna Jones, said: ‘Investigative responsibility for suspected rogue traders sits with Trading Standards. Local authorities should be making sure they have enough resources available to scrutinise businesses which are being reported for operating unfairly or outside of the law, and then go to the police to take forward if there is any evidence of criminality.

‘Fraud is extremely complex and challenging, and the National Fraud Information Bureau, Trading Standards and the police should work together on tackling it.

‘I am pleased to see that earlier this month the government unveiled its new fraud strategy which includes plans to stop scammers at source by introducing a state of the art £30m reporting centre and recruiting more than 400 new officers with a National Fraud Squad.’

But furious and disillusioned Gosport fraud victims Zara and Scott Spinks wanted to let people know what had happened. They spoke up for all the group victims who contacted Streetwise sickened by being continuously denied justice and shunted from pillar to post.

Their entire savings of £22,000 had been wiped out for their home and kitchen makeover but were warned by surveyors they were destined to have to find more than double they’d paid out because their home was trashed and wasn’t left in a workable condition.

Zara said: ‘It's disgusting rogues are allowed to scam families out of thousands of pounds and endanger lives simply because the police Action Fraud can’t be bothered to do their job and protect the public. What's the point in paying our forever increasing council tax for sub-standard policing protection. You can almost guarantee if one of us was a member of the police force, it would have been investigated and they'd have got their money back.’

Since fraudulent traders are unlikely to be brought to justice and the banks will refuse to refund victims, Streetwise urges readers not to be taken in by smooth-talking rogues.

Never fall for fake reviews, and only engage a builder who is listed on the trusted trading standards Buy with Confidence database. Always insist on a written contract with the builder detailing the price, what is included, and the timescale for each project stage.

Only pay for work at each agreed stage and the work has been completed satisfactorily. Ensure the builder has a complaints and dispute resolution process endorsed by trading standards included in their contract. Beware builders who are not VAT-registered, offer dirt-cheap quotes, or insist on pocketing upfront cash payments before starting any work.