Cardiff warning on scam e-mail

December 14, 2001

Consumers and businesses in the Cardiff area are being advised to beware of 'get rich quick schemes' which are being circulated by e-mail. The e-mails originate from South Africa or America and often offer recipients the chance to make thousands of pounds.

Some of the e-mails ask consumers to consider allowing their bank account to be used to 'transfer' funds out of South Africa for investment. Other schemes offer to make members of the public millionaires within a year. The claims of earning thousands of pounds depends on people purchasing marketing reports for $5 each and placing their details on a list.

The hope is they will receive money from others who request copies of the reports in the future when they are re-sold by the original purchaser.

Trading Standards officers are receiving an increasing amount of complaints about these junk e-mails which can leave members of the public in financial difficulty. They are advising people to ignore them and not to have anything to do with these scams.

Cllr. Len Ackerman, Deputy Chair of Licensing and Public Protection said, "People should be aware that by responding to these e-mails, they could lose a considerable amount of money. Trading Standards can do nothing to prevent the e-mails being sent, because they are coming from overseas, our advice is send them to the recycle bin."

Source: Cardiff County Council