Mail and phone scams catch out 3m Britons annually

About 3 million Britons are being cheated of £3.5bn a year by fraudsters who solicit money by letter, email, text and telephone, the Office of Fair Trading said yesterday.

Fewer than one in 20 victims report their experience, but trading watchdogs hope to help consumers fight back after a survey revealed the scale of the problem for the first time.



A nationwide campaign in February asking the public for examples of scam mailings they had received showed just how rife rip-offs have become. Misleading sweepstakes and prize draws, fake clairvoyants, bogus foreign lotteries and miracle health cures were among the most common cons being perpetrated among more than 15,000 mailings passed to 50 of the 200 local authority trading standards offices in England, Wales and Scotland.

Mike Haley, the OFT's director of consumer protection, said: "The huge range of mailings uncovered by the Scamnesty campaign illustrate there really is a scam for everyone."