Fraud is being attempted, yet the police won't act
There’s a spate of cold calling going on from some companies claiming to be MoneySavingExpert.com. Recently we reported one obvious scam to the police, yet we were told they wouldn’t do anything until someone lost money. But surely we should stop it BEFORE that happens?
In the past we’ve had companies trying to use our name to help their sales. This clearly infringes our trade mark so it’s easy to head off (see MSE wins battle over "Money Claiming Experts"). Yet the new range of scams seem to have taken a nastier turn.
We believe scammers are trying to get people to hand over cash up front for services that will never appear. They generally seem to be from overseas and mention issues such as bank charges, life insurance and other similar things.
We’ve had one case of a lady in Australia who has contacted us after losing money. There are also a growing number of people emailing our imposters@moneysavingexpert.com address who have told us that they have also received calls here in the UK. Having managed to get hold of one of the phone numbers, we called up and heard them describing themselves as "Money Saving Expert".
Yet the frustration is, when the MSE lawyer spoke to the police, they told her they will not treat the calls as fraud unless or until someone has actually lost money (ie. not received the service for which they have paid) and in any event, our understanding is that it is the person who has lost the money who must report the fraud, not us.
We’re open to ideas via the two comment options below…
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