Imagine having your house sold from underneath your feet, or nearly dying from a fake weight-loss drug you bought online? Those are just a couple of the jaw-dropping swindles uncovered on Scams Week on BBC1’s Rip Off Britain.
‘Just when you think you’ve heard it all, you find out you haven’t,’ sighs Gloria Hunniford, 84, who continues to host the show despite losing her husband of 25 years, Stephen Way, in August. She’s presented Rip Off Britain for 15 years alongside Julia Somerville and Angela Rippon, who has taken a break this series.
‘We’re now dealing with scams that are much more sophisticated than before and worldwide,’ continues Gloria. ‘And what’s so shocking is that when people are scammed they feel embarrassed and ashamed that they were lured into it. They shouldn’t, because these scammers are much cleverer than the police, which the police admit.’
Gloria, was the victim of a £120,000 fraud herself in 2016 when an impostor pretended to be her at her bank and withdrew money. Making the show has turned her against online banking. ‘I still use cheques,’ says Gloria. ‘I know that I’m archaic in the handling of my affairs, but I know what I’m doing when I’m paying my bills.’
As much as she loves her job and says she’ll do it ‘for as long as they want me’ Gloria admits there’s a danger in presenting – and indeed watching – Rip Off Britain. ‘Learning about all these scams, you could easily get to a point where you don’t trust anyone!’
Below, we reveal some of the worst scams to appear in this week’s shows, and tips on how you can protect yourself from fraud.
1. INJURED PETS SCAMS PULL AT PEOPLE’S HEARTSTRINGS
What is it?
Scammers use posts about missing pets on social media to lure viewers into parting with cash.
What happened?
In 2018, traffic officer Hannah Weston made headlines after dramatically rescuing an injured dog on the M1 motorway in Nottinghamshire. The dog, Thor, recovered and Hannah adopted him. A few years later, when the original photos of Hannah rescuing Thor were back on Instagram but with different stories attached, she suspected that scammers were using her story to tug on people’s heartstrings before directing them to money-extorting scams.
What’s the scam?
It’s called a ‘bait and switch scam’, says Tony Thompson from fact-checking charity Full Fact. ‘The photos reel people in and then fraudsters switch the content, turning it into a scam.’ Scammers use the goodwill created by the original post and its thousands of ‘likes’ to lure people into thinking it’s legitimate content. Posts featuring Hannah were used in a housing scam.
How to avoid it
Look for clues on posts, says Thompson. ‘These posts often have a red pin followed by a location name. Also, the profiles of the people posting are often very fake-looking, in that they don’t have any other posts at all.’ If the post is on Facebook, pressing the ‘edit history’ button will show you what the post looked like originally.
2. CAR THEFT SCAM ROBBED AN EBAY SELLER OF £10,000
What is it?
Private buyers tell sellers they’re paying via bank transfer but use a stolen cheque instead.
What happened?
Gloria tells the story of Linda and Derek Clegg from Clitheroe, Lancashire, who sold their vintage Land Rover on eBay for £10,000 in February. Two buyers arrived and transferred the money via phone, and once Linda saw that the funds were in her bank account, she handed over the keys. But a few hours later the bank invalidated the sale after realising that the buyers’ money had come from a stolen cheque deposited at a bank by an accomplice at the moment of sale. The bank cancelled the payment, leaving Linda £10,000 short.
What happened next?
The Cleggs rang the police and Action Fraud, and asked Barclays Bank to reimburse the money, but the bank baulked after deciding the Cleggs had been the victims of car theft and not a scam. ‘Linda believes they did everything possible to confirm that the money was in her account before releasing the vehicle to their buyers,’ says Gloria. ‘Surely the bank should have flagged up that this cheque was stolen or not legitimate.’
How to avoid it
When you sell anything and receive money into your account, ‘call the bank even if it’s an online transaction’, says cyber-security expert Jake Moore. ‘But the banks need to be thinking about people that use cheques and making sure they put better security in place to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.’
3. SCAMMERS TAKE OUT A LOAN SECURED ON SOMEONE ELSE’S PROPERTY
What is it?
In April 2024 Khalil Hafeez of London made a shocking discovery. ‘Criminals had managed to borrow almost half a million pounds against one of his rental properties in east London, leaving him with £10,000 monthly payments,’ says Julia. ‘He says his protests are simply going unheard.’
What happened?
Fraudsters collected information about Khalil via the dark web to set up fake identity documents – for example by opening new utility accounts in his name on his rental property – and forged a passport, all of which they presented to the loan company claiming to be Khalil. Khalil also discovered online that he had been fraudulently appointed director of four limited companies and that a bank account was opened in his name.
What happened next?
Khalil’s first repayment of nearly £10,000 is due in January 2025. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong and it seems like all the doors are shut,’ says Khalil. ‘The authorities are saying they can’t do anything. It’s left me on my own to deal with it. It has affected me mentally.’
How to solve it
Going through the courts will be an expensive business, costing up to an eye-watering £100,000, explains property fraud lawyer Arun Chauhan, who adds: ‘There’s a much better option for him.’ To protect future fraudulent activity against properties, sign up for £40 to the Land Registry Property Alert. They send you an email any time there is activity, such as an application to change the register or someone applying for a mortgage on the property, so you can take prompt action. Property fraud is on the rise – in 2021 HM Land Registry paid out £3.5million in compensation.
4. CRYPTO SCAM ROBS A WIDOW OF £225,000
What is it?
A sophisticated scam that robs investors of their savings.
What happened?
Soon after being widowed in early 2022, Sheryl Haigh from Preston answered a social media ad for cryptocurrency investment and was persuaded over the phone by its friendly ‘financial advisers’ to sign up to a scheme that would provide an income. Over three months Sheryl invested money and watched her investments soar on their (fake) investment app until she logged on one day to find her balance was zero.
What happened next?
Sheryl appealed to online bank Revolut, from where she was paying the scammers, to refund her money but the bank refused, saying she had ignored their scam warnings. An appeal to the Financial Ombudsman also failed. Sheryl accepted a goodwill reimbursement of 25% of her loss. ‘I am now living with my dad and stepmum in a one-bedroom caravan,’ says Sheryl.
How to avoid it
Revolut Bank says it urges all its customers to avoid so-called investment opportunities on social media platforms and to carry out detailed research before making investments. However, Rip Off Britain producer Katie Saatchi reports that Revolut Bank has a much higher rate of these frauds reported than any other major UK bank, so it advises would-be investers to consider that when investing.
5. FAKE WEIGHT-LOSS DRUGS THAT CAN KILL YOU
What is it?
Online sellers flogging weight-loss injections they claim are from reputable brands like Ozempic are often selling fakes, in some cases dangerous ones.
What happened?
When Michelle Sword of Oxfordshire couldn’t get Ozempic from the legitimate online pharmacy she’d previously used, she bought the drug from another online seller. Within minutes of injecting it, Michelle was completely unresponsive and rushed to hospital, where she suffered a seizure. ‘Doctors told me the injecting pen I’d used was an insulin pen,’ says Michelle, meaning the drug was intended for diabetics only and was dangerous for others. ‘It can kill you. I just felt incredible shame. I couldn’t believe I’d done something so stupid.’
How to avoid it
Weight loss jabs are only available with a prescription in the UK and should be bought from a reputable seller. ‘The surefire way to stay safe is to go on to the GPhC [General Pharmaceutical Council] register online to see if the seller is a registered pharmacy,’ says Andy Marling of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
6. HACKED EBAY ACCOUNTS LEAVE SELLER OUT OF POCKET
What is it?
Scammers who’ve hacked an eBay account start selling false items, collect the money and when the item never arrives, the eBay account holder gets the bill.
What happened?
In June last year, David Yarnall of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, had £1,400 of debt racked up in his name after a hacker compromised his eBay account and listed items for sale. Despite David alerting eBay to this scam numerous times, the platform failed to act in time and then asked David to cough up for some items the scammer had sold in his name. When David refused, eBay instructed debt collectors to chase the money.
What happened next?
‘After we brought David’s case to eBay, it offered sincere apologies for any distress that was caused to him,’ says Gloria. ‘It said it recognises that he wasn’t responsible for any of the charges. It has now therefore cleared the full overdue balance from David’s account.’
How to avoid it
‘First of all, make sure you use unique passwords across all of your online accounts,’ says tech expert David McClelland. ‘Secondly, enable multi-factor authentication. Remember that one of the ways in which criminals get in is through ‘phishing’ messages, so be very wary about clicking on any links and giving away your logins.’ Phishing e-mails will appear to be from a trusted source but are not, and they will ask the consumer to provide personal information.
7. COOKIES THAT LEAVE A BAD TASTE
What is it?
When you press the ‘accept all cookies’ button on a website, the internet cookies [or bits of data] that store information about you and your computer usage contain information – your name, your email address – that can be used by scammers.
What happens?
Scammers sell the information the cookies contain on the dark web, leading to the risk of identity theft and a sophisticated array of targeted scams. ‘If you just accept all the cookies blindly, you risk your data being available out there in the wider world,’ explains Oli Buckley, a Professor in Cyber Security at Loughborough University. ‘If it ends up in the wrong hands, it could be used to build up this increasingly detailed profile about you and target you [with] scams or phishing emails.’
‘First of all, there is the privacy risk,’ says tech expert David McClelland. ‘If we are unwittingly allowing our information to be shared amongst myriad third parties to build up these profiles of us that can be used to hyper-target us with advertising and worse. Then there is the security risk, and that is when specific cookies can be stolen from our device.’
How to avoid it
‘Often there’s a box that says ‘Manage’ cookies instead,’ says McClelland. ‘Click on that and then on ‘Deny All’. Maybe switch to a web browser that disallows some of these cookies and the cross-site tracking. But finally, a lot of the cookie theft happens through malware, bits of software you might install on your machine from untrusted websites or browser extensions. So be extremely cautious about downloading anything onto your device from somewhere you don’t trust.’ Also, once a month delete all the cookies for sites that you visit infrequently.
8. BEWARE THIRD-PARTY SELLERS
What is it?
Well-known online shops that sell goods from a third party deny liability when the purchase goes wrong.
What happened?
In January this year Tracy Whitley from Sunderland bought a £230 fridge freezer sold by a third party through the Debenhams website. It began leaking and soon stopped working. Tracy contacted Debenhams, who approached the third-party seller and refused their offer of a repairman, insisting on a refund. The third-party seller refused.
What happened next?
‘If you purchased directly with Debenhams, your contract is with them, [not] whoever they pass on the business to,’ says consumer expert Adam Shaw. ‘It’s outrageous, the way [Tracy] has been treated.’ Rip Off Britain got in touch with Debenhams who apologised for the months of delays, refunded Tracy’s money and offered her compensation.
How to avoid it
‘Know your rights,’ says Adam. ‘The company you buy from is the company you have a contract with. Secondly, as a general rule when buying goods, you get more consumer protection when buying with a credit card than through PayPal and there are few protections when you pay with a debit card or cash.’
9. OWNER’S HOUSE IS SOLD FROM UNDER HIS FEET
What is it?
Scammers posing as the owner of a property take ownership and sell it, pocketing the money. ‘This is one of the most shocking scams we’ve ever uncovered,’ says Gloria.
What happened?
Vicar Mike Hall from Luton was working abroad when neighbours alerted him to builders renovating his house. When Mike made inquiries, he discovered that his house had been sold! Scammers had stolen documents from his post box, forged a passport in his name, taken it all to a lawyer pretending to be him and sold his property.
‘The solicitor needs to do checks, but if the lawyers say, “Yes, you are that person”, they’ll sell the house,’ explains journalist Shari Vahl, who has been following the story for BBC Radio 4’s You And Yours programme. ‘And title deeds [to a property] don’t exist anymore – what matters is the name on the Land Registry.’
What happened next?
Things got worse. Mike called the police who, astonishingly, told him that the house was no longer his according to the Land Registry and that it’s not a criminal offence but a civil matter – he would have to fight it in civil court. Mike was lucky – the person who bought the house from the criminals gave it back. Unfortunately, squatters moved in and Mike is still fighting to remove them.
How to avoid it
Install a tamper-proof postbox in a visible position close to the house, so scammers can’t easily pilfer the bank statements and utility bills they need to steal your identity. Be particularly vigilant if you own a holiday let or empty house. ‘The criminals tend to go for properties without mortgages and where you don’t live,’ explains Shari Vahl, because they won’t want to have to pay off a mortgage at the time of sale.
Protect yourself by going to the Land Registry. ‘They have a special free service called the Property Alert Service and you can sign up for it online,’ says Shari. ‘It will tell you if anyone is doing searches on your property or trying to sell it.’
- Rip Off Britain: Scams Week is on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 10.45am on BBC1 and on BBC iPlayer. Scam Safe Week, running until November 27, is a BBC initiative highlighting what viewers can do to protect themselves from being scammed. See www.bbc.co.uk/scamsafe
