Scam Saturday

Sometimes you can go for months at a time and not come across a juicy scam, then two turn up at once.

Yesterday evening, my mother in law came to visit and wanted to know what we thought about an offer she had seen in the stuff that we would usually throw in the bin when it falls out of a magazine or newspaper. This one had fallen out of the Telegraph and it looked too good to be true. She showed me the gift certificate (and I reproduce it here):

Although the print is a little too small to see, it says that the owner of the certificate is entitled to order one thousand pounds worth of goods without any product charges. There is an asterisk with a rider at the bottom – all goods are subject to a handling charge. Bear in mind that these things tend to be cleverly worded and designed to deceive; as one contributor to the forums at moneysaving expert.com pointed out:

anyway, got the catalogue, it then turned out to be the uk world catalogue, from Faversham, first disappointment, then reading the prize voucher, you can only claim your 1000£ in one hit, second disappointment, then looking through it, the items in it, were less than you find in the throw away catalogues you get in magazines, third disappointment, then the nail in the coffin, everything has a handling charge, this handling charge is not common to all items, it varies in cost, so to be critical, i related the handling cost to be the true cost of the item.

So, no free lunch after all. Indeed, a pile of cheap tat that no one in their right minds would want sold under the guise of being “free” when they are anything but. They also make money from their premium rate phone line.

My first impression when faced with this type of scheme is: how are they making their money? Followed by: There’s no such thing as a free lunch and then by: If it looks to good to be true, it usually is. These caveats apply to the UK World Catalogue £1000 free offer. Also worth pointing out is this, from droopsnout posting on the same thread:

If anyone else is interested in this voucher offer, I have found information regarding OFT action against a different company but with the same address for their registered office: The World For Less Ltd., 1 Saxon Road, Faversham, Kent ME13 8QA (this address appears on the voucher offer materials). You can read the article I found at:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/News/Press+rel…005/201-05.htm

[Edit – link broken. more here and the catalogue request address is Twyford]

The ruling concerns inertia selling.

Credit Reports and Annual Accounts information is available at:

http://www.ukdata.com/numbers/04855058.html

or here:

https://secure.creditgate.com/search…=F ull%20Data

I found these snippets by Googling for their postcode. The search reveals that the address is used by a number of companies, and, according to checkmyfile.com, “This area is classed as carrying a high credit risk.”

You have been warned. Interestingly, this scam has been compounded by one opportunist offering the certificate for sale on eBay. I suppose you have to reserve some admiration for the unmitigated gall being displayed here, but, Christ! At least no one bid for it…

Anyway, earlier in the day, we had someone call at the door and ask Mrs Longrider for our gas and electricity number. Mrs Longrider was confused. “Do you want to read the meter?” she asked. No, came the reply, we have been looking at your details because they came up on our computer and you are paying too much for your gas and electricity.

Oh, I thought, Npower. I’d noticed the young reps going from door to door across the street earlier in the day, but had forgotten about it. They were selling something, but it was not obvious what. Had I remembered, I’d have just told Mrs Longrider to ignore the doorbell.

Anyway, now that she had our attention, the rep asked to see our power bills. I replied that we don’t have any as we deal with our supplier exclusively over the Internet. She then asked again for our number – by which time, I realised that she meant our consumer number.

Now, here I preach caution. While I cannot say for certain that slamming was going on, once these people have access to such information, they can (and in some cases have) switch you without your consent. Consent is implied when you give them the number.

Having been refused access to our bill or consumer number, the rep launched into her spiel while I stood mute and let her run out of steam, finishing in an awkward silence as the script failed to play out as it had done in her training course. I told her that I use Uswitch to work out the best deal. It seems that Npower has cottoned onto the fact that they perform badly here because the rep told me that the discount of £80 plus the lack of a standing service charge amounting to a further reduction taking it to a total of £160 is not picked up by Uswitch, and I would get a better deal signing up with her. However, it would seem that she was misinformed, Uswitch does include the discount. The other trick Npower use is to take smaller amounts from the consumer’s account during the year and do a sweep up at the end of the year. Frankly, they do not offer the best deal and having let the rep trail into an awkward silence, I told her that I was not planning on switching and she went with, I seemed to detect, some relief. I am probably the doorstep seller’s worst nightmare. If I feel inclined I’ll let them have their say and then I’ll go off script, which is amusing for me and difficult for them. There was a brief moment when I almost felt sorry for her.

Anyway, I digress. If you are planning on switching your utility supplier, do it yourself and if someone calls at the door, by all means get information from them but then do your homework. I realise that this sounds like obvious common sense, but people still get taken in. Don’t be one of them.