Fraud Alert

Money transfer fraud

• Money transfer services are often the preferred method used by a variety of fraudsters in Online auction site frauds, 419 fraud, lottery fraud and criminal cashback.
  
• Money transfer agents, which include Western Union provide a service for those who need to send money quickly and reliably to friends and family, and should not be used for money transfer to people that you do not know or whose identity you cannot verify.
  
• Never pay for an item bought on an on line auction site through instant wire transfer service, whether it is suggested after making the winning bid or whether through another approach, such as second chance offer or offer the goods at a reduced price suggesting you step outside on the online auction site. There is little security in this, no matter what the seller says, and you are effectively sending your hard earned cash to a stranger ‘on trust’ alone.
  
• Never send money via money transfer service if you have been in receipt of lottery fraud email, during which you are encouraged by the fraudster to send money in the form of advance fees to gain the release of the lottery funds, as genuine lotteries will never ask you for such funds to pay taxes or release fees. In fact genuine lotteries, such as the UK Big Lottery has no idea who has bought the winning ticket, so will never be able to contact you telling you about your ‘unclaimed’ prize money. Never send these people money by any method.
  
• Never send money via money transfer service if you have been in receipt of a ‘419’ email offering you a cut of a large sum of money the if you help to release it from a bank account. If you respond, during the discussions with the fraudster you will be encouraged by them to send them money in the form of advance fees to gain the release of the funds mentioned in the email, usually a ridiculous figure mentioned that is in the millions. Never send these people money by any method.
  
• Never send money via money transfer service if you have been in receipt of cheque payment from someone in a sum greater that that you are asking (known as criminal cashback) for the item you are selling or property you are renting. After the cheque has been paid into your account, the fraudster you will encouraging you to send to them or someone else the difference by money transfer or bank transfer. Never send these people money by any method. If the cheque is stolen or forged it often can take more than 3 days, sometimes considerable longer, before that cheque is identified as being stolen or forged. Not only have you already sent the funds by money transfer with no means of recovering it, you will find that you bank account will have the original debt reversed, leaving you with the loss of the funds withdrawn and sent via money transfer.
  
• When money transfer services are being used in connection with fraudulently activity, whilst the person collecting the money has to produce identification, the documents produced by these fraudsters are often false, making the recovery of any money sent by this method extremely difficult.
  
• Western Union recently joined forces with the Metropolitan Police Service to combat ‘high volume’ fraud – see article .
  
• A new Western Union money transfer warning sheet - (75KB PDF)

Useful links

• Office of Fair Trading
• Home Office - Identity Fraud
• National Identity Prevention Advice
• Anti-phishing

Who to contact

If you believe you might be being set up as a target for fraud or have been a victim of this type of fraud and need advice contact your local police station. If you are a resident in Greater London area this link will provide details of your local police station. If you are resident outside the London area, the following link will provide you with details of your local force website from which you can obtain details of your local police station.

If you think you have information that might prevent or provide intelligence on this type of crime, or you become the potential victim of another type of fraud that we are not aware please advise the Fraud Alert team by e-mail. Please not that we will not specifically respond to emails, unless we have a need to clarify or seek further information from the sender. This is due to the large number of emails we receive daily and we hope that you appreciate the demands this places on the team.