Staying Safe from Romance Fraud

Romance fraud is an emerging threat, the police are seeing thousands of victims across the UK.

Fraudsters who commit these offences are often based abroad. They often pose as engineers, oil rig workers, doctors and military. Once they make contact they usually ask the victim to move from the social media/dating site they meet onto other platforms such as WhatsApp/Hangouts. They also ask for the victim to send money via MoneyGram, Western Union and other transfer services, they also sometimes ask for gift cards to be purchased. 

Links to further information and guidance

• https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/a-z-of-fraud/dating-fraud
• Romance fraud | Crimestoppers
• Fraud - Victim Support
• Banks have something in place called the Banking Protocol, this may be of use to older family relatives. The banking industry have a duty of care to protect customers, especially vulnerable customers against fraud. If you feel your bank has being unreasonable you can make a complaint. When someone is coerced into making a fraudulent transaction it is known as Authorised Push Payment, more details can be found on this link:
  What to do if you’re the victim of a bank transfer (APP) scam - Which?
• Cyber enabled fraud:
  https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/central/advice/fraud/met/little-book-of-cyber-scams-2.0.pdf
• For any family members who use the internet it may be an idea to check how secure your passwords are. You can do this via the website "how secure if my password":
  https://howsecureismypassword.net/
• If your identity is stolen, you can lose money and may find it difficult to get loans, credit cards or a mortgage.
  Identity theft | ICO

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Predatory Marriage

Predatory Marriage is the practice of intentionally targeting and marrying a vulnerable (often older) person in order to gain access to their estate and assets upon their death. Predatory Marriage relies on grooming and coercion to exert control over another person to persuade them to marry for financial, material or other gain. The following 7 minute briefing will take you through what is predatory marriage, legislation, what the signs are and what to do if you are concerned someone is a victim of this type of abuse.

7 Minute Briefing - Predatory Marriage

You can also read more about this topic here on the Ann Craft Trust Website:

Predatory Marriage - Safeguarding Matters - Ann Craft Trust