DAVID CANTER says Action Fraud’s helpline promises were a betrayal

Conned… and conned again: When top criminologist DAVID CANTER lost £18,000 in a scam, he hoped the Action Fraud helpline would bring him justice, but he says their hollow promises were a shattering betrayal

• Top criminologist Professor David Canter lost £18,000 to a phone scammer
• Mr Canter hoped the Action Fraud helpline would bring him justice
• In fact, he says, Action Fraud’s hollow promises were a shattering betrayal

The woman on the phone had a warm and reassuring manner and quickly won my confidence.

She was, she said, a BT engineer, who wanted to make sure my computer hadn’t been ‘compromised’ by fraudulent activity after my email account was hacked.

There seemed no reason not to trust her. She knew my computer’s identification number after all.

When I checked my email account, I discovered it had been hacked and my contacts had been peppered with emails, supposedly sent by me, advising them of my plight and the need for cash. The fraudsters were redirecting responses to their own account [File photo]

Little did I know, on that fateful day two years ago, that it was this woman who was the fraudster, and her duplicitous act — and my gullibility — would allow her to steal £18,000 from my bank account.

But as terrible as that was, it was the next phone conversation that left me truly in despair — and I know now that it is an experience all too common with fraud victims.

Like so many scammed out of their hard-earned savings, once I’d reported the crime, I was advised by police to call Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime.

This, I assumed, was a team of specialists. How wrong I was. A newspaper investigation this week has revealed the people who operate the Action Fraud call centre are dismally-trained amateurs. 

Some victims are so distressed by their predicament and embarrassed by being duped, that they blame themselves for their naivety and commit suicide. It is surely the duty of organisations like Action Fraud to ensure a victim’s despair never reaches that point [File photo]

Not only do many have no policing background, but, as The Times revealed, some of the staff even have criminal histories and come to work ‘under the influence’ of drugs and alcohol.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, to learn they make little effort to take seriously desperate calls from devastated victims.

Instead of reassuring anxious callers — many of whom will be elderly and distressed — some of these callous individuals prefer to play on their phones and lark about even as those who have been duped are pouring out their hearts.

And so those targeted by fraudulent predators are betrayed twice: first by the heartless conmen and women who steal their money, and then by the inept, unqualified, heartless dunces charged with tracking them down.

Most people I know would agree that, on paper, I’m not a typical victim of fraud. As a professor of investigative psychology, I’ve spent my life studying the criminal mind. 

I’ve helped police track down the grisliest of criminals, including notorious serial killer rapists John Duffy and David Mulcahy in the 1980s. 

Like so many scammed out of their hard-earned savings, once I’d reported the crime, I was advised by police to call Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime. This, I assumed, was a team of specialists. How wrong I was [File photo]

Recently, I’ve dedicated my time to studying complex cases of financial crime.

And yet I still fell foul of a carefully orchestrated scam. I first knew something was amiss when distant acquaintances started contacting me to check if I was stranded on holiday in Turkey and required funds to get home.

When I checked my email account, I discovered it had been hacked and my contacts had been peppered with emails, supposedly sent by me, advising them of my plight and the need for cash. The fraudsters were redirecting responses to their own account.

Fortunately, none of the recipients — most of whom I hadn’t contacted in years — sent money to the fake email, knowing it was highly unlikely I would email out of the blue in such a manner.

That, I thought was the end of it — but it transpired that I’d been softened up by a subtle piece of social engineering.

A few days later I received a call from a ‘BT engineer’. I was very busy with work at the time and was wary of using my computer after the hacking incident. 

I wanted the problem solved as quickly as possible and this nice woman on the phone who seemed to know all about what had happened was there to help.

That was a disastrous mistake on my part. She was very polite, complimenting me on my computing skills, as she took control of my computer and said they were sorting out the problem. 

It was only when she told me not to use my phone for a day or two that I started to think something was amiss.

Last year, £1.2 billion was stolen through fraud and scams. It’s an eye-watering amount, Yet through my work, I’ve spoken to countless officers working in economic crime who are honest about the fact that they only focus on cases where losses run into hundreds of thousands of pounds [File photo]

So I consulted an IT expert who helps me at work, and it was then that I discovered that the criminals had, via my computer, hacked into my online bank account and transferred a total of £18,000 to various accounts of their own.

This was only an hour or so after the phone call, but my bank refused to cancel the transfer. (Eventually, after I really started to kick up a fuss, they returned the money.)

Like any victim of a crime, I immediately contacted the police, who gave me a crime report number and told me to contact Action Fraud.

To say that they were useless is a wild understatement.

After failing to get through to them on the phone, I contacted them through their website, and tried to fill in an online form that was totally inadequate. There was hardly any space to describe what had happened.

And when I tried to enter the bank details of the criminals (that I’d obtained from my bank), I was instructed not to include them. How on earth were they going to track down my money?

Eventually, I managed to speak to someone at Action Fraud over the phone. I was so relieved that I didn’t hold back and embarked on a detailed blow-by-blow account.

But the guy on the other end of the line simply wasn’t interested. It was clear that he was just going through the motions.

Since I shared my story I’ve had lots of people contact me to tell me of similar experiences. Doctors, lawyers, established business people; all have lost substantial amounts of money.

Last year, £1.2 billion was stolen through fraud and scams. It’s an eye-watering amount,

Yet through my work, I’ve spoken to countless officers working in economic crime who are honest about the fact that they only focus on cases where losses run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

This ignores the fact that when a small business loses even £10,000, it can mean bankruptcy. I’ve learned that the consequences can be tragically far reaching. 

Some victims are so distressed by their predicament and embarrassed by being duped, that they blame themselves for their naivety and commit suicide.

It is surely the duty of organisations like Action Fraud to ensure a victim’s despair never reaches that point. 

The least we should be able to expect is that the dedicated national taskforce is staffed by experienced professionals who take a victim’s claims seriously.

But to treat those who suffer these crimes as morons or pretend to be police officers when they are not — both of which the undercover Times journalist reported — is a disgrace that only compounds the victims’ despair.

More often than not, scammers don’t fit the stereotype of bully boys grabbing handbags on the street. 

Instead of reassuring anxious callers — many of whom will be elderly and distressed — some of these callous individuals prefer to play on their phones and lark about even as those who have been duped are pouring out their hearts [File photo]

They are teams of subtle manipulators who, as I discovered, manage to find victims when they are most vulnerable; perhaps going through a divorce, moving home, coming to terms with a recent diagnosis of a serious illness — or just busy and pre-occupied as I was that day. 

These are the very people Action Fraud should be treating with most care.

So what should be done? Sacking a few careless individuals who have been caught slacking won’t solve anything in the long term. Instead, we need to revolutionise the way fraud is investigated.

Integrating a specialist police organisation with the banking industry would be a start. After all, from the moment someone is scammed, every minute is precious. 

Anything that enables cooperation between the two sectors should be welcomed.

City of London Police Commander Karen Baxter, the national lead for economic crime, yesterday told the Mail: ‘We are horrified and saddened to hear reports that victims — vulnerable and otherwise — are treated disrespectfully when they report to Action Fraud.

‘We are working to ensure these dreadful attitudes to victim care have no place in service delivery and I would like to apologise to any victim who is concerned by how their crime report was managed by call centre staff.’

In the meantime, fraudsters must be licking their lips at the current state of ineptitude. Hell, they’re probably laughing at Action Fraud all the way to their overseas bank.

David Canter is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Liverpool.

Source: Read Full Article