New Business - Beware - Fraudsters!

[Urban Geek]

I just thought I would alert you to correspondence I received recently. It looks extremely official and headed "Data Collection Services (Enforcement Section) - Notice: New Business: Notification Under the Data Protection Act 1998". To cut a long story short, it is a demand for £95 payable to D.C.S. It comes with a brown pre-addressed envelope to D.C.S (Enforcement Section), City Buildings ... Merseyside. It basically says that if you fail to pay the £95, you are commiting a criminal offence and could be liable for a fine of up to £5,000.

This kind of demand rang a bell with we and on looking up the web discovered that it is all a fraud. However, it would be very easy to fall for this as it is so official and the fact that the return address is City Buildings made it seem even more convincing.

As a new business start up, there is so much to learn and do but please look out for this. If in doubt, contact the police for confirmation.

 

[ALEX]

Well said Chris.

My Dad had the very letter and realised it was a fraud, he got so anoyed he got in touch with the company and told them in not so polite terms what robbers they were. A few days later it was on a television news programe to be aware ov these very people!

Don't be taken in by them.

 

[Kellyc]

Thanks Chris i will keep my eye open x

 

[Aphrodite]

Yes BEWARE! They are SO convincing, they have official paper and the bloke wears a suit apparently... They ripped my friend off for £350 last year....

 

[dee]

god i will be dreading my mail now ,coz if i got anything like that through i would probably just pay it , but if i do get one i will be ringing em up and telling em where to stick it (knowing my luck it will be official and i will get carted off to police station for verbal assualt! lol :lol: ) any way thanks for letting us know

 

[beautiful_nails]

Yep! They tried to get me on it too.
I returned it to them (without a stamp) with a note telling them to 'pull the other one coz it's got bells on it and a cheque payable to me for £95 quid would be most appreciated..' funnily enough they haven't replied yet

 

[Mrs Gadget]

Nearly got caught out on this one too, but stopped the cheque thankfully before they could cash it.

Jue xxx

 

[Peter Pan]

thanks for the warning - i too will keep my eyes peeled

 

[crystal100]

How can people get away with this sort of thing!

 

[Bobs]

OMG thanks for that one babe, I owe you one. I've got the letter in front of me. Wrote the cheque out this morning. Never got chance to post it THANK GOD.

I'm really angry. How can people get away with this sort of thing. We work our backsides off to earn a decent living and these ejits can just come along and make a small fortune off our backs.

 

[Hollyballoo]

This is shocking but does anyone know where they are getting your details from - is this via Yell or somewhere because I thought I recalled someone saying something similar was going on with the advertising too a while back and they were telephoning asking for payment via credit card but they seemed to know more than you would expect (ie renewal times) so I wondered where they are getting the information they need to convince people?

 

[luckybird21]

this is really bad, im one of those dimlo's who would pay it and apologise for any inconvenience i may have caused them! Me a push over, nah!?

 

[Urban Geek]

I think they get your details when you register with yell.com or perhaps local internet sites. It is amazing what people get away with. You'd think with a return address the police would be able to put a halt to this, but ...

 

[talented talons]

Its great to know aboutthis, i also had one a while back but ignored it as thought is was a company just trying to get all my info from me, plus money of course.

Unfortunately, if you know where to look, you can find out almost anything about anyone on the good old world wide web. So its not something that can be stopped completely. The one thing that helped me was to register with the Mail Preference Service. This will limit the junk mail you'll be sent and only takes a few weeks to work.

Plus they do one for tellephone cold calling too, so well worth registering for both, as it screens out most of the annoying calls and postthat you just don't need.

 

[emmalouisa]

hi wendy how do i register with them as im getting lotsa cold calls???

 

[beautiful_nails]

The only place these rotten theiving gets can possibly be getting our details from is Yellow Pages as I don't advertise showing my address anywhere except there.
If anyone else gets one of these forms perhaps you might like to send them something unpleasant in a parcel........
Just a thought.....

 

[Hollyballoo]

A couple of useful contacts...

Telephone Preference Service

Mailing Preference Service

HTH

 

[NeetNailz]

I too had one of these a few weeks ago and looked on a goverment website where I found a telephone number to call. I was told that it was indeed a scam and there are many companies operating this. I had nothing about me on the website at the time and indeed had done no real advertising. I registered my business like everyone else with the contributions place in Newcastle and they in turn informed the Inland Revenue and it's my belief that this is from where the information is readily available. What happened to the Data Protection Act for peeps like us - are we a breed aside from our clients then?

 

[Teena_B]

Hi
This morning I got an A4 envelope through my door. Expecting my certificate from NSI I opened it eagerly. The contents were not nice, it was this same "Data Collection Services" that you've mentioned. I recalled reading this thread (all be it very vaguely) a couple of weeks ago, so came on here and LOW AND BEHOLD the same fraud letter to me!

I am absolutely disgusted. I am considering whether to take it to the local police station, or to fill it in, you know, with my name (M. Mouse) my address (1, Main Street, The Magic Kingdom, Disney World, Florida) my business name (M. Mouse Promotions) and send the full amount of 95 Squids on a cheque from my bank (Looney Tunes Incorporated Bank Plc)! Obviously, I'll send it with no stamp, then they can pay the postage themselves out of all the money they have ripped off from people who didn't know it was a scam.

Why the hell can't something be done about these people? SURELY A RETURN ADDRESS MEANS THEY CAN BE CAUGHT? There's no way this is legal!

 

[Teena_B]

Actually thinking about it, I wonder if they can be done through the Data Protection Act, as they obviously are holding details of us and many other people, and they are using it in a criminal manner?