Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
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Scambusters team secures Government funding in London, South East and East of England
Rogue traders and other con merchants in London, the South East and East of England will continue to be hounded by a team of "Scambusters" after the Government announced £1.95m of new funding for the successful team.
The specialist Trading Standards team is based in two locations, Leatherhead and Chelmsford. It helps local authorities throughout the region and works with the Police to crackdown on rogue traders, dodgy door-step salespeople, counterfeiters, prize draw scams, cowboy builders and many other scams.
Consumer Affairs Minister Gareth Thomas said:
"Rogue traders who con honest people out of their hard earned money are a disgrace.
"Our continued investment will enable this team to keep shutting these conmen down and bringing them to justice. It will concentrate on the most serious scams that cause consumers the biggest problems, but are often beyond the capacity of local councils to deal with."
Steve Playle, who manages the local Scambusters team, said:
"I'm absolutely delighted that our good work has been recognised and new funding granted.
"The continued funding will enable us to close the net even tighter around rogue traders that exploit and cheat millions of pounds out of vulnerable consumers every year."
The team was one of three pilots set up by the Government in September 2006.
One recent high profile case led to four men being jailed after a driveway paving scam. The men, who conned an 81 year old Hampshire pensioner out his £75,000 life savings, were jailed for a total of almost fourteen years at Southampton Crown Court. The Police, Scambusters and Hampshire County Council Trading Standards worked together on the case.
Since September 2006, the three pilots areas have:
* saved an estimated £3m for consumers
* seized £2m worth of criminal assets
* uncovered an estimated £16m worth of fraud
* seized 13,760 illicit cigarettes
* closed down 44 e-mail addresses and 24 phone numbers used by national mailing scams
* shut down 165 websites of suspected rogue traders
Consumers who feel that they have been ripped off by cold calling traders or who wish to report scams or suspicious activity can report the matter to Trading Standards via the national Consumer Direct helpline on 08454 04 05 06.
Notes for Editors
* The Government's grant will be over three years. The team is run by a partnership of the London Trading Standards Authorities group, Trading Standards South East and East of England Trading Standards Authorities
* The team is based in Leatherhead, Surrey and Chelmsford, Essex covering 61 local authorities in the three regions
* Local press contact Steve Playle steve.playle@surreycc.gov.uk 01372 371686 07968 834647
* The pilot teams have been so successful that the Government has decided to launch a nationwide crackdown. As well as extending the work of the pilot teams until 2011, the Government is investing approximately £7.5 million in new Scambusters teams so that Wales, Scotland and each of the nine Government regions in England have a team
* Larger scams tend to work across local authority boundaries. This makes it difficult for local authority trading standards teams to target them. The cross border approach of Scambusters is helping to tackle this problem.
* The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform helps UK business succeed in an increasingly competitive world. It promotes business growth and a strong enterprise economy, leads the better regulation agenda and champions free and fair markets. It is the shareholder in a number of Government-owned assets and it works to secure, clean and competitively priced energy supplies.
