Posts Tagged ‘Fraud’

Bigamist swindled bride out of £50,000

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Maureen Walder, 54, married John Lewis, 48, in a lavish ceremony in Sri Lanka in October 2007, eight months before his divorce from his fourth wife was finalised.

The pair had begun their romance in April 2006 after Lewis “melted the heart” of Miss Walder, who had been single for almost 20 years.

He had led her to believe he was a “true survivor” by pretending he had been a former paratrooper in the Falklands and was shot in the leg after being forced to eject from his plane. He also claimed to have been a Lord’s chauffeur.

He later whisked her off to a Paris restaurant on Boxing Day 2006, knelt down on one knee and proposed to her.

However months later, Miss Walder, discovered the man she had agreed to marry was not only a bigamist, but also a fraudster and a fantasist.

At Taunton Crown Court on Friday, Lewis was jailed for 15 months after pleading guilty to bigamy and three offences of fraud.

Lewis swore an affidavit that he was free to marry before their ceremony in Sri Lanka, for which he hired elephants and dancers, the court heard.

The newly married couple later moved to Italy to take a house sitting job for a wealthy British couple. But when Miss Walder returned to her flat in Minehead, Somerset, she discovered a pile of letters from debt collection agencies.

A subsequent investigation found Lewis had twice forged her signature to obtain £36,000 in loan payouts. The court also heard the couple had applied for a £70,000 mortgage, but Lewis actually received £89,000, having lied to his wife.

The court was told Lewis suffered from Munchausen’s syndrome, a psychological condition that can lead to compulsive lying.

Before sentence was passed on Lewis, Miss Walder said: “This whole period of my life has been horrendous. I never want to see or hear from him again.

“Looking back it seems so far-fetched but I trusted him completely. I hope my story will save some other poor woman from being duped. All I wanted was a bit of romance but my hopes and dreams have come crashing down around me. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a man again.”

She added: “My lavish life had been a lie. I had been paying for it without even realising. I had never been in debt before and he had taken me for a mug, someone who was weak, and could be manipulated.”

Miss Walder said she discovered her husband was a bigamist, because she was curious about why he had changed his surname. “I looked online and found out that he hadn’t divorced his wife. It was the final nail in the coffin.

“Not only had I been defrauded, but I had naively married a bigamist. I reported him to police and told them everything I knew.”

Tags: Fraud, mortgage arrears, swindled, unpaid loans
Posted in Debt News, Financial News | No Comments »

Fraud Costing British Economy Billions

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Recently released figures show that Fraud is costing the British economy £30bn a year, or £621 for every person in the country.

The National Fraud Authority (NFA) released the figures which were double the previous estimate of £13bn, which hadn’t taken into account the total financial loss resulting from fraud as much of it remains undetected or unreported.

The public sector is the most hard hit sector of fraud with around 58 per cent of all fraud against it, which includes £15.2bn of tax fraud and £1.1bn of benefit fraud.

Almost a third of fraud (31 per cent) is committed against companies and the remaining 12 per cent is against members of the public, the report found.

Breaking down the private sector fraud reveals the the financial service industry recorded the highest loss to fraudsters, estimated to be £3.8bn, with £1bn in mortgage fraud and over £2bn lost in insurance fraud. Fraud in plastic cards, online banking and cheques comprised most of the remainder.

Credit and debit card fraud is estimated to be 0.1 per cent of total transactions.

The NFA’s chief executive, Bernard Herdan, said ”With this vital information we can develop clearer priorities to prevent, detect and deter fraudsters. We will use the data to help identify those areas of fraud that cause the most harm to the UK economy. Reducing the cost of fraud is important but even more significantly I want to stop more people from becoming victims.”

Baroness Scotland, the attorney general, urged more organisations to report the money they lose to fraud. She said: “We now have a much more accurate fraud picture which is crucial so we can better target fraudsters.”

Mike Bowron, City of London Police commissioner and the lead on fraud for the Association of Chief Police Officers, added: “We always believed that the true cost of fraud could be much higher than previous estimates. It is vital that we ensure that the methodology used to measure the cost of fraud on the UK economy is as up to date and as comprehensive as is possible.”

Tags: British Economy, Fraud, National Fraud Authority, NFA
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Calls for Companies House to prevent fraud

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

As identity theft increases, there is an increase in pressure being put on Lord Mandelson’s Business Department to tighten controls over access to confidential data held by Companies House.

The Institute of Credit Managament (ICM) has called for new measures in order to present a greater level of difficulty to those looking to use the information gleaned from company registrations to place orders, arrange delivery and disappear without trace.

ICM Chairman, Larry Coltman, said “These people (the fraudsters) are clever and intelligent. The problem is getting worse but it is difficult to catch them and mount prosecutions. We want to make it more difficult for them to get the information which allows them to place large orders and leave suppliers with a heavy loss.”

Currently, Companies House operates a system whereby when company data is changed or altered it must be registered online but ICM said that the safeguards do not provide protection in cases where a director is impersonated by a fraudster setting up a new company online and passing it off as a subsidiary of the registered business.

Mr Coltman, who is also a senior partner in a Coventry-based debt recovery specialist business, has been involved in a series of cases where fraudsters have tricked suppliers into delivering substantial quantities of goods.

In one case, £20,000 worth of champagne was delivered to an out of the way lock-up unit and another involved a series of orders for unpaid goods worth around £500,000, and a third an alleged identify theft by the friend of a director.

The “friend” of 15 years’ standing used the director’s name to set up a bogus company to defraud suppliers. Even after he had been exposed, the man continued to insist that he was the “real director”.

Mr Coltman said: “A lot of suppliers who are conned put it down to experience, but even after making checks and credit checks they can be fooled by a clever fraudster. They’re criminals with GCSEs.”

Companies House receives an average of 18 complaints a month about the misuse of a registered office address, but says the figure is low in relation to the 64,000 notifications about business changes handled each month.

The Business Department is consulting on whether changes should be made to the system of registered office addresses to try and reduce identity theft.

However, ICM believes that more rigorous changes and checks are needed.

Tags: Companies House, Fraud, ICM, Lord Coltman
Posted in Debt News, Financial News | No Comments »