Action Fraud only investigate 1 in 100 reported cyber crimes

[Murray]

Article below

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nline-fraud-cases-rocketing-recent-years.html

I was scammed out of a low £x,xxx amount October last year, called action fraud, guy was very nice who I talked to

Took them until July this year for a police force to contact me to take a statement, she said I should detail exactly what happened, they will write it, send it to me to sign (since they're not based in my part of the country)

Never did hear back, so it's a year later, nothing done

So lesson learned from that article and myself, If you wan to commit some light cyber crime, as long as your victims are normal people, then you probably have a great shot at getting away with it

 

[ian]

Yep, it is a rife problem that simply cannot be followed up on a case by case basis. I had a similar instance where a low 4 figure amount was taken (currency at Heathrow!). It was unusual because at the time, the card, which was a debit card, had only been used once, with a single company (as it happens, Fasthosts). I got my money back through the chargeback scheme offered by the bank, but a follow up with the police with evidence of use only with a single company led to no investigation, though I do believe Fasthosts had previously been investigated for holding all customer payment details on a single excel file...I'm sure (hope) that has since been changed.

 

[donton]

Action Fraud is frighteningly impotent.

In the world of ecommerce we see a fair few chargebacks. Most of them we're able to resolve amicably and be reimbursed - some we're able to spot and we just cancel the order before it escalates. On the few that slip through I used to contact Action Fraud... it's a total waste of time.

If you have enough evidence that fraud has taken place then you're better off just reporting it to the police. If they try to fob you back off to Action Fraud then make sure you evidence is comprehensive and ask them to have another look. We had about £1000 worth of stock recovered after reporting one particular individual to the police.

The amount of fraud that takes place, especially online, is scary - and what's even scarier is that Action Fraud is the body that's tasked with taking care of it.

 

[mat]

Surprisingly though, about 10 years ago I bought a car part off of someone on a car forum for around £50. When it never arrived I decided to call my local police (I was so frustrated at how brazen he was) although expected nothing to happen.

They actually managed to locate him from the details I gave them and get a local officer in his area to get him to send me the money back over bank transfer!

I was amazed!!! I never thought anything would even come of reporting such a small amount and thought that they wouldn’t have a clue what I’m talking about when I start telling them about a user on an internet forum.