According to research by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), every year 3.2 million adults in the UK fall victim to a scam involving deceptive unsolicited mailings, phone calls or e-mails. Scams cost the UK consumer around £3.5 billion per annum.
Behind these figures lie often heartbreaking tales about people being robbed of their entire life savings, while being too embarrassed to tell anyone about it. These pages tell you how you can protect yourself from becoming the victim of a scam, how scams work and what you should do if you suspect a scam or have fallen victim to one.
Stop Junk Mail does not give personal advise about what to do if you or someone you know is being conned. Scams and junk mail may have a lot in common but there are other organisation that are better able to help you. Throughout this section we will emphasize that it is vital to contact both Consumer Direct and the Think Jessica Campaign instead:
Consumer Direct
Think Jessica
More information about these organisations is available under 'What to do'.