City of York Council leading new regional Scambusting Team (York Liberal Democrats)

York Liberal Democrats <info@yorklibdems.org.uk>

City of York Council leading new regional Scambusting Team

August 27, 2008 5:17 PM

City of York Council has been successful in its bid to attract £749, 600 of funding over 3 years to establish and host a Scambusting Team on behalf of the Yorkshire and Humber region.

The Scambusting Team will tackle rogue trading across the region, and will target issues such as:

§ Doorstep crime

§ Car clocking operations

§ Deceptive selling techniques, particularly those targeting vulnerable consumers working from home and other "get rich quick schemes"

§ The sale of dangerous and substandard goods

§ Cowboy builders who cost customer thousands of pounds with shoddy and unnecessary work

§ Large scale, organised counterfeiting operations

City of York Council submitted a bid for the Scambuster Team on behalf of the Yorkshire and Humber Trading Standards Group in April.

The Scambuster Team will consist of a manager and three investigators and will be based in York. The team will use intelligence from a variety of sources, including a consumer complaint database.

Cllr Ann Reid, Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services, said: "It is excellent news that the Council is leading on this new scambusting project and has been successful in bidding for this funding. The Scambusting Team will work to identify and prioritise problems and intervene to tackle these effectively. It will also deliver targeted education to raise consumer and business awareness of scammers. Many scammers work across a wide geographical area and this new team will not be hampered by artificial administrative boundaries."

"Scammers are clever and can use sophisticated tactics, so anyone can fall victim to their persuasive tactics. If people are in any doubt, I would encourage them to tell Trading Standards so they can liaise with the Office of Fair Trading and the police to stop the fraud."