Trading Standards eCrime

Enforcement teams raided premises across the country last week as Operation Jasper, the UK’s biggest crackdown on counterfeiting and piracy enabled through social media, entered its second phase.
The raids saw Trading Standards and police officers seize a range of counterfeit and dangerous goods destined for sale to customers on popular social media platforms. Goods seized in the latest phase of the operation included IPTV devices, clothing, footwear, headphones, music CDs and illicit tobacco.

Enforcement teams raided premises across the country last week as Operation Jasper, the UK’s biggest crackdown on counterfeiting and piracy enabled through social media, entered its second phase.
The raids saw Trading Standards and police officers seize a range of counterfeit and dangerous goods destined for sale to customers on popular social media platforms. Goods seized in the latest phase of the operation included IPTV devices, clothing, footwear, headphones, music CDs and illicit tobacco.

Action Fraud and the National Trading Standards eCrime Team (NTSeCT) are warning consumers about emails from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) offering compensation for the Microsoft Scam.
These emails are fakes. Neither the ACCC nor NTSeCT would contact you by email and ask for your personal details.
The emails are designed to steal your personal information, and some may ask for an up-front fee in return for advancing your compensation.
Don’t reply to the email and never pay any upfront fees if asked for them.

Action Fraud and the National Trading Standards eCrime Team (NTSeCT) are warning consumers about emails from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) offering compensation for the Microsoft Scam.
These emails are fakes. Neither the ACCC nor NTSeCT would contact you by email and ask for your personal details.
The emails are designed to steal your personal information, and some may ask for an up-front fee in return for advancing your compensation.
Don’t reply to the email and never pay any upfront fees if asked for them.

The BBC’s the One Show covered ‘free-trial’ scams, also known as subscription traps last Tuesday evening on 1 December at 7pm. The show featured an interview with Mike Andrews, the national coordinator for the National Trading Standards eCrime Team, who are co-ordinating the crack-down on free-trial scams along with Citizens Advice and other consumer protection partners.

‘Know Your New Rights’ is the theme of this year’s National Consumer Week campaign, running from 2-6 November.
The week long campaign is run by Citizens Advice and Trading Standards and aims to help consumers learn more about their new rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Inaugural National Trading Standards ‘Consumer Harm Report’ reveals annual data and predicts biggest threats for 2016 including energy, lottery and telephone preference scams
National Trading Standards (NTS) teams prevented £252m* worth of loss to consumers and businesses in the last year, prevented more than 2.5m unsafeor non-compliant goods from entering the supply chain through our borders and convicted 100 criminals who are now serving a total of 118 years of prison time.

One of the UK’s biggest online safety campaigns runs between 19 to 24 October 2015. The theme of this year’s Get Safe Online Week is “Online crime is always personal – Don’t be a target.”
The campaign is always a good time to think about what we do to keep ourselves, our finances and our devices safe online, but this year it encourages us to help others stay safe too.
We all know someone who’s vulnerable online. A family member, friend, neighbour or work colleague who could be encouraged to use social media or the internet more safely than they do right now.

Scammers have capitalised on Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement that Facebook have been working on a ‘dislike’ button. Not long after his announcement, links and apps offering the fake ‘dislike’ button began spreading across the world’s most popular social media platform.
Facebook does not have an official ‘dislike’ button, any app, profile or website offering one is a scam.
If you see posts saying you have been chosen by Facebook to test its ‘new’ button they are also scams. Don’t click any of these links.

Apple is expected to unveil a new iPhone this week and the National Trading Standards eCrime Team is urging consumers to be on the lookout for criminals trying to exploit the hype by flooding popular social media platforms with misleading adverts and bogus offers.