Letter: 'Modern fraud clearly knows no bounds'

For the criminally minded, all those on the make at the cost of others, the advent of the web and mobiles and social media clearly manna from heaven.

My own most recent experience dealing with fraud – a lost phone message appeal with a new number asking for “help”.

Long story short a request through WhatsAppp for funds to be transferred.

Credibility on many counts seemed high but then bells ringing.

We all need to know we never transfer funds, or personal information, to any phone number purporting to be a family member, a friend, or any business we might have had dealings with, without a phone call making clear who is calling.

In this case all relevant information including fraudsters bank details sent to Action Fraud and to the relevant banks. And on that point the gateway fraud number for banks is 159.

This then the third attempted fraud I have personally dealt with in three years.

One other case – a professional surveyor hugely undervaluing a property in the interest of other parties. Another case attempting to get a ‘signature’ for a ‘quote’ which turned out to be a contract. Which is to say fraud is at work throughout our world of business.

Indeed the higher we go the more enormous and less visible global fraud.

Remember the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, and the Pandora Papers.

Glimpses into the super wealth of the super wealthy across the globe. UK City of London at the heart of a tax haven empire from Channel Islands to Virgin Islands to Bermuda and Isle of Mann.

Fraud on a giant scale endemic in our country and worldwide.

We can then but give all the support we can to police and agencies taking on national and global fraud, and all we can to get politicians in power committed to transparency and accountability, from the top down.

JEFF WILLIAMS

Jubilee Road, Poole