A thousand scam letters seized in six months

Tuesday 26 January 2016

More than a thousand “scam mail” letters have been collected by police through a scheme that started just six month ago.

The PO Box 500 initiative was put in place by Jersey Post, the Jersey Consumer Council and the police, and lets people forward scam mail to the police for investigation.

They say that the main source of the letters are France and Holland – most of the scams are based on lottery or prize wins, or psychics predicting a chance to win money.

They tend to ask recipients to send around £30 to release a “prize”.

Police said: “The aim is to enable scam mail to be posted back to Jersey Post free of charge and then forwarded securely onto the police for further investigation.

“Jersey Consumer Council, Jersey Police, Citizens Advice and the Fraud Prevention Forum recognise that temptation needs to be removed from the recipient as soon as possible and the letter sent to a relevant authority helps the recipient to deal with the daily onslaught of unwanted mail.

“When these letters reach the police they are all opened and assessed, the police seek to identify new and emerging scam trends, forewarn the public and look into which country they originated from, any addresses on the mail and details of any bank accounts.

“This information is shared with relevant agencies around the world to aid the prevention, detection and disruption of crime.”