Author: comptroller

Bait and Switch Scams

A company offers a fantastic deal to draw customers to the business, but when you contact the business you find that the deal is not available. The company then tries to convince you to buy something else. This is called bait and switch and is a very common ploy.

Bait-and-switch scams are commonly found in newspapers and are also common on Craigslist. A bait-and-switch does not typically involve selling phony or non-functional products; the overpriced products and services work as advertised. Some customers may not even realize that they were victims of a bait-and-switch scam.

Laws Regarding Bait-and-Switch

  1. You can complain to the advertising authority and you can sue for false advertising.
  2. Manufacturers or distributors of the product or service used as bait can also sue the seller for trademark infringement, on the grounds that the seller uses trademarked images of the product or service in their advertisements with no intention to sell them.

However, sellers have not committed a crime if they try to push customers towards another product, as long as the original deal is available. Sellers are not liable if they mention in their advertisements that the products have limited availability, so customers should always read the fine print.

Warning signs of Bait-and-Switch Scams include: offer is too good to be true, the fine print is misleading or confused, there is no information about the company and its registered office, there seems to be no stock of products still being advertised, sales people appear and try to convince you to buy other products instead of the one you selected.

Beware the bait and switch.

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Facebook Shares Data with 150 Companies

Facebook shares dropped significantly when the New York Times reported that the social media company allowed more than 150 companies (including Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify) to access more users’ personal data than it had previously disclosed.

According to the report, the social network had allowed Microsoft’s Bing search engine to see names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent, and allowed other companies to read Facebook users’ private messages.

Steve Satterfield, Facebook’s director of privacy and public policy, claimed that none of the partnerships violated users’ privacy, or a 2011 agreement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to require explicit permission from members before sharing their data.

Facebook has admitted it allowed other big tech companies to read users’ private messages, but denies it did so without consent.

Facebook said it shut down its “instant personalisation” process in 2014, which allowed users to link their Facebook accounts with other services to see public information their friends shared. But it admitted the software components for the service were left in place after it shut down, potentially allowing developers to continue accessing users’ personal information. Facebook said it has “no evidence data was used or misused after the program was shut down.”

This is pretty bad for Facebook as it’s yet another case where the company has shown little regard for its users and prioritised money above privacy.

But, it’s not as bad as it may seem as the other companies involved appear to have had APPS and services that used specific data from Facebook and users had given permission although they may not have known exactly what they were giving permission for.

One day, Facebook may start treating its users properly – we can only hope for that miracle.

Do you have an opinion on this matter? Please comment in the box below.

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Pension Scammers Caught

Four scammers who conned pension savers out of £13.7 million have been banned from the industry and banned from being company directors or trustees. The Pensions Regulator has launched a criminal investigation as these people need to be jailed for swindling so many out of their life savings.

David Austin was the leader of the group and he and his family took most of the proceeds.

The money was spent on lavish living – and only £3.2M of the cash taken was actually invested in anything and that was a risky venture.

David Austin is a former bankrupt with no experience running an investment business, but conned people into investing with him.

The scam starts with cold calling and websites set up to lure pension investors. The scammers created a series of bogus investments including one about growing truffle trees and one about a Caribbean holiday site.

The victims were told their pensions would be reinvested and they would be paid an upfront cash lump sum for making the transfer. They were also lied to that their funds would be put into assets, bonds and HMRC-compliant investments to meet the target return of 5% growth a year.

False documents were used to trick staff at the schemes where the victims had their pensions – into believing that the pension holders worked for companies linked to the scam schemes. This meant the staff were persuaded to allow £13.7 million of funds to be transferred to the scam schemes.

David Austin installed fellow criminals Alan Barratt, Susan Dalton and Julian Hanson as the trustees for the scam schemes and they were then paid to act on his instructions, allowing the scheme monies to be used at Austin’s will. Barratt and Dalton also acted as salesmen for Austin’s Spain-based business, Select Pension Investments, persuading victims to transfer their pension pots into the schemes.

A small proportion of the funds – between 10% and 25% of the amounts transferred – were given back to the victims as their “rebate”, although many victims were assured that this payment was coming from the investment provider not out of their pension pots. More than £1 million was paid to “introducers” or “agents” who used cold-calling to encourage pension members to transfer over their funds.

More than £10.3 million was transferred to businesses owned or controlled by Austin,

A whistle-blower contacted The Pensions Regulator about the scam in November 2014 who then took control of the schemes to prevent further money being removed.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

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