At the launch of a campaign during scams awareness month, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has highlighted the top ten scams targeting UK consumers.

UK consumers lose an estimated £1 billion per year to a variety of scams which exploit low-cost, mass-marketing techniques. Many of these scams originate from overseas, making detection and prosecution difficult.

The Oft have warned that consumers need to be on the alert for the following:

• Prize draw, sweepstakes and foreign lottery mailing scams - most are notification of a prize win that requires a fee - with no prize.
• Premium rate telephone number scams - notification of a win with instructions to call an 090 number.
• Investment related scams - offering shares or commodities - these are high risk and may be worth a lot less than you pay.
• 'Solid' valuable investments, such as gem stones - you never see your investment.
• Nigerian advance fee frauds - offers to share money in return for bank account details - the victim's bank account is pilfered.
• Pyramid schemes - offer a return on investment based on the number of new recruits - only the people who set up the scheme make any money.
• Matrix schemes - offering expensive gadgets as free gifts in return for a small spend on a low-value product - but only the person at the top of the list gets a gift.
• Credit scams - originating in Canada this offers fast loans regardless of credit history. Consumers are told loans have been agreed but that they must pay a fee - the loan never appears.
• Property investment schemes - a course promises to teach them how to make money dealing in property. Schemes may involve the opportunity to buy properties which have yet to be built or a buy-to-let - properties and tenants are non-existent.
• Work-at-home and business opportunity scams - often paid work from home but which require payment for materials or require investment in a high-risk business.

Christine Wade, Director of consumer regulation enforcement at the OFT, said: "Scammers are resourceful, enterprising, and manipulative. By exploiting the same routes to market as legitimate business, they damage not only individual consumers, but the interests of fair-trading businesses as well."

Joining forces with law-enforcement agencies in over 30 countries to tackle scams which originate outside the UK borders, the OFT in October 2004, co-operation with partner agencies in the US and Canada helped lead to over 100 arrests in the US and 35 in other countries for telemarketing scams.

(SP)