Sponsored Publications
The
Police recently issued a warning in relation to frauds involving a crime
prevention journal.
The
success of this scam has become so widely known that numerous other similar
enterprises have sprung up, mainly in the North West of England but also in
London, being run by former members of staff, or former tele-sales staff, who
have realised how easy it is to make large amounts of money for little
expenditure.
The
method used by these fraudsters is to occupy short-term rented accommodation and
recruit tele-sales staff to cold-call businesses, usually identified from Yellow
Pages, and solicit payment for an advertisement in a crime/drugs/fire/accident
prevention publication. The payments are purportedly to finance the publication
and its distribution to local schools/hospitals/youth centres etc. Invariably
either no publication is produced or one of poor quality is produced and all the
income goes into payment of wages with a substantial rake-off for the
fraudsters.
As
telesales staff are usually paid on a commission basis they will use any and all
means to entice potential sponsors to part with their money, from claiming to be
charity volunteers to actually claiming to be police officers or crime
prevention officers. There is also evidence that staff are tutored by management
and provided with scripts as to what to say.
The scale
of the problem has grown to the extent that businesses up and down the country
are being bombarded by unsolicited telephone calls seeking their sponsorship for
one publication or another.
If you
are approached to make a contribution to a "good cause" publication, do not
hesitate to ask for evidence that the request and the publication are genuine.
In cases of doubt you should report the details to the local police.
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