Scams: Don’t be rushed, don’t be hushed…

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A unique initiative is bringing public, private and third sector organisations together to make Wales a hostile place for scammers, criminals who often deliberately target older and vulnerable people.

The Wales Against Scams Partnership (WASP), whose members include Age Cymru, the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, and trading standards, is using Scams Awareness Month to highlight the nature and impact of scams within communities across Wales.

Scams against older and vulnerable people can take many forms, with criminals targeting
individuals via the post, over the telephone and door-to-door. Recent years have also seen  significant increase in scams and fraud perpetrated via the internet.

The cost of these scams is not simply financial: victims often suffer a loss of confidence, self esteem and peace of mind and in many cases feel a sense of shame, which can lead to a failure to report crimes of this nature – figures show that less than 5% of victims report scams to the authorities. The impact of scams can, quite simply, blight the rest of an individual’s life.

Find out more about current scams at Age Cymru’s Scams Information Hub

Action Fraud: National Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting Centre – at this Police website you can find a list of scams and frauds.

You can also report fraud, including online or internet crimes and receive a police crime reference number OR report a potential scam message or computer virus that you have received, but no money has been lost or you haven’t responded to it.

The little big book of scams 3rd ed.