Fraud Act 2006 - Time to ask the police to take action

[meagain]

You could write back acknowledging some aspects, but clarifying the following:

 

1) The sum at risk is estimated to be at least £1 million ( this is simply an objective and recognisable sign post of seriousness and likely public concern rather than mainly indicator of suitability).

 

The sum at risk is estimated to be at least £4 billion annually. This alone should be enough to spur them into action.

 

2) The case is likely to give rise to national publicity and widespread public concern. These include those involving government departments, public bodies, the government of other countries and commercial cases of public interest.

 

It is a matter of grave public concern if the organisations to which we entrust not only our personal finances, but the maintenance of the entire economy, are defrauding the public to the tune of an average £800-1000pa per capita.

 

The investigation requires a highly specialist knowledge of, for example, financial markets and their practices.

 

This case undoubtedly requires such skills.

 

The case has significant international dimension.

 

Many of the companies involve have operations overseas, which may or may not operate on the same basis.

 

There is a need for legal, accountancy and investigative skills to be brought together as a combined operation.

 

This may take some work, but it is not unreasonable to think that an examination of the law and enumeration of actual costs are both necessary in this case.

 

The suspected fraud appears to be complex and one in which the use of section 2 powers might be appropriate.

 

The suspected fraud has been perpetrated against an estimated 20 million people in small measures over the course of over 20 years, designed in a manner to not be detectable by financial authorities. If this isn't complex enough, I don't know what is.

 

* Reducing fraud and the cost of fraud;

 

As a result of this fraud, taxpayer funds intended to be spent on social security is diverted to having to refund benefit claimants suffering as a result of these punitive charges. Each time this happens, the bank has retained £30 at the expense of 30 benefit claimants who might each be £1 better off.

 

* The delivery of justice and the rule of law;

 

The banks are clearly flouting the rule of law, and going to extreme lengths to deny justice to the victims.

 

* Maintaining confidence in the UK's business and financial institutions.

 

If we cannot find justice, we cannot hold any confidence in these institutions, thus it is in the interests of the government, the commercial sector, and the public at large, that this activity is stopped.

 

The matter you raise are being investigated by the Office of Fair Trading, and the Financial Ombudsman Service both organisations having the powers to refer maters to the Serious Fraud Office should they consider that to be the appropriate course of action.

 

Powers which both organisations seem intent on not using.

 

I will be writing to the SFO in due course. I'm still in favour of suing the OFT for gross negligence.

[Guest The Terminator]

You could write back acknowledging some aspects, but clarifying the following:

 

 

 

The sum at risk is estimated to be at least £4 billion annually. This alone should be enough to spur them into action.

 

 

 

It is a matter of grave public concern if the organisations to which we entrust not only our personal finances, but the maintenance of the entire economy, are defrauding the public to the tune of an average £800-1000pa per capita.

 

 

 

This case undoubtedly requires such skills.

 

 

 

Many of the companies involve have operations overseas, which may or may not operate on the same basis.

 

 

 

This may take some work, but it is not unreasonable to think that an examination of the law and enumeration of actual costs are both necessary in this case.

 

 

 

The suspected fraud has been perpetrated against an estimated 20 million people in small measures over the course of over 20 years, designed in a manner to not be detectable by financial authorities. If this isn't complex enough, I don't know what is.

 

 

 

As a result of this fraud, taxpayer funds intended to be spent on social security is diverted to having to refund benefit claimants suffering as a result of these punitive charges. Each time this happens, the bank has retained £30 at the expense of 30 benefit claimants who might each be £1 better off.

 

 

 

The banks are clearly flouting the rule of law, and going to extreme lengths to deny justice to the victims.

 

 

 

If we cannot find justice, we cannot hold any confidence in these institutions, thus it is in the interests of the government, the commercial sector, and the public at large, that this activity is stopped.

 

 

 

Powers which both organisations seem intent on not using.

 

I will be writing to the SFO in due course. I'm still in favour of suing the OFT for gross negligence.

 

Meagain: You forgot to add the estimated 670 mill that the banks are getting for putting up the interest rates on overdrafts.

[meagain]

Meagain: You forgot to add the estimated 670 mill that the banks are getting for putting up the interest rates on overdrafts.

 

Oh, silly me

[thecornflake]

The Fraud act has been discussed in the legalities thread in the Theft Act section. A key point of the Fraud Act being that the banks only need to believe the charges 'might be' unlawful etc.

 

Due to the nullem crimen rule of course this can only be used for charges from now on, and i hope fairly soon to be able to send the letter to my bank which I posted here a little while ago (in general) to notify them that I believe all future charges would constitute a criminal offence under the act. If they do still add charges after the letter I am anticipating difficulty in getting the police to take it seriously but I think some media coverage would happen and it will be interesting to see how the banks react to this threat as they cannot simply settle out of court on this one.

 

The basics of my letter are as follows -

 

- - - -

 

I believe that the addition of any further penalty charges to the above account after receipt of this letter would constitute a breach of section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006 under the following points -

 

1) It is a breach of the act to make a false representation as defined in section 2 and intend by making the representation to either make a gain for youself or others, or to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

 

2) The Act includes provision for the 'representation' mentioned above to be either express or implied (section 2, subsection 4)

 

3) Due the large amount of claims and surrounding publicity, in addition to myself making yourselves aware of this fact by means of this letter, it is my understanding that under section 2, subsection 2b of the aforementioned you either know that your representation of penallty charges are, or might be, untrue or misleading in that they are represented as lawful terms of a contract based on your terms and conditions when they are in fact believed to be unlawful under .

In addition the fact that the Office of Fair trading have decided to launch a full investigation into these charges and their previous ruling against credit card charges gived further evidence to the fact that they believe they may well be unlawful.

 

Therefore any further penalty charges levied on the above account will result in the relevant authorities being contacted for consideration of prosecution for the offences listed above. Please note that:

 

A person who is guilty of fraud under this act is liable -

 

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or to both);

 

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to a fine (or to both).

Under section 12 of the act if an offence under this Act is committed by a body corporate and the offence is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of—

 

(a)a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or

 

(b)a person who was purporting to act in any such capacity,

he (as well as the body corporate) is guilty of the offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

[thesergeant]

OK its time to bump this thread back in ...................

 

The Fraud Act 2006 is now in and the banks are still applying unlawful charges. They are not defending any actions that we are aware of, therefore continuing to apply such unlawful charges may constitute fraudulent trading.

 

For a Plc conviction for this has now been increased by the above act to 14 years.

 

Could or should we begin to inundate the police, SFO and MPs with requests that they look into why a £4.5 billion pound fraud is not being investigation by the relevant authorities ?????

 

:D:D:D:D:D

[Smoothy]

Interesting thread.

Subscribing to it.

[moneymania]

Interesting thread.

Subscribing to it.

 

I'm also watching this thread very closely.

 

But wouldn't you need to prove they are being dishonest.

[meagain]

That proof is trivial. It is unconscionable that the banks would not be aware that their penalties are unlawful - it would require that their legal teams were idiots.

[Bicester1]

Hi

 

I am sure the police will not take action. What about a private prosecution? Any pro bono lawyers lurking?

 

Bicester1

 

 

MBNA WON £623

GM Card Won £580

Barclaycard LBA

Nat West Bank offer received negociating

Nat West CC offer received negociating

Lloyds PPI prelim:wink:

 

 

Any advice is given informally. I am not a lawyer. Consult a trained professional if unsure of your legal position. If my advice is helpful please tip my scales!

[Bicester1]

Hi

 

It might get some publicity if the CEO of Barclays found himself on the end of summons! What a lovely thought!

MBNA WON £623

GM Card Won £580

Barclaycard LBA

Nat West Bank offer received negociating

Nat West CC offer received negociating

Lloyds PPI prelim:wink:

 

 

Any advice is given informally. I am not a lawyer. Consult a trained professional if unsure of your legal position. If my advice is helpful please tip my scales!

[moneymania]

That proof is trivial. It is unconscionable that the banks would not be aware that their penalties are unlawful - it would require that their legal teams were idiots.

 

Their penalties are unlawful, no question about it, but they only have to say the charges were estimated. They don't have to be a close estimatation of their actual liquidated losses. The problem lies with getting proof of their actual losses.

Don't get me wrong, i want them to tow the line as much as you and if that means putting one behind bars, then so be it. but we need to be water tight first.

 

Just my thoughts.

[progenic7]

The other thing to remember with the new fraud act is, just like in tortious misrepresentation cases the whole responsibility and burden of proof shifts from us to them as it were.

Just by anyone claiming they had committed an offence under any one of them now requires the bank to prove thats not the case.

 

this is how i interperate the law anyway

[meagain]

In particular, I think it expands the offence to anyone that might believe their penalties are unlawful. This reinforces the notion that their legal teams would have to be idiots to not realise that they might be unlawful.

[progenic7]

OK its time to bump this thread back in ...................

 

The Fraud Act 2006 is now in and the banks are still applying unlawful charges. They are not defending any actions that we are aware of, therefore continuing to apply such unlawful charges may constitute fraudulent trading.

 

For a Plc conviction for this has now been increased by the above act to 14 years.

 

Could or should we begin to inundate the police, SFO and MPs with requests that they look into why a £4.5 billion pound fraud is not being investigation by the relevant authorities ?????

 

:D:D:D:D:D

 

meagain yeah very true, and i think sergeant has a point with this comment, well why dont we ?

[shaun fleming]

I have not posted on this thread for a while as I am now waiting and working towards my court date on the 9th May 2007. We have noted all your advice in this thread with regards writing back to the SFO and once our case is settled, will be sending all relevant copies of case to all bodies including SFO, DTI, CPS, FSA, OFT and our sympathetic Cornish MP.

 

We will then look at chasing our money back on our other account, if all goes well!

 

Thank you everybody and good luck.

 

From 'The Grim Reaper'

[meagain]

Anyone thinking about private prosecutions probably wants to know two things:

 

* They're horrendously complex and expensive, and the bank enjoys the benefit of any doubt - you will need to retain the services of a barrister.

* AFAIK, for all intents and purposes a failed prosecution puts a permanent end to the matter - the bank gets away with it and can't be prosecuted for the same suspected fraud again. Ever.

[alanfromderby]

Certainly I would agree with meagain's comments, however I do feel that eventually someone will look to taking a case forward.

 

My hope is that they will try and pool a number of cases together and seek financial support from other interested parties - let's face it they have several million of them to choose from!

 

I would also imagine that public funds may become available should the matter go to a higher court. There are plenty of cases where this does happen - especially where the matter is "high-profile" or there is a major public interest.

[Guest ian cognito]

AFAIK, for all intents and purposes a failed prosecution puts a permanent end to the matter - the bank gets away with it and can't be prosecuted for the same suspected fraud again. Ever.

 

Wouldn't they have to have god knows how many billion cases of fraud to be taken into consideration? that would look good on their defence!

[meagain]

Wouldn't they have to have god knows how many billion cases of fraud to be taken into consideration? that would look good on their defence!

 

No, they would have the one case of carrying on a fraudulent business. All they have to do is argue in the second case that the activity in question is in fact the same activity that someone failed to prosecute for in the first case, and the bank escapes prosecution under the double jeopardy rule. Unless of course "new and compelling" evidence is presented for the second trial.

[progenic7]

meagain,

 

but i think it does depend on how the case was bought to the court, if for instance it were a private customer bringing the claim of fraud relevant only to their account then, every customer in the bank could bring this claim and bring it on the same basis. If however the claim of fraud was against the banks legal department, or any individual department then again as long as the department was different or the basis was different it wouldnt matter.

 

There are a thousand ways to aproach a fraud case and even more case scenarios based on fraud. Put simply there are many ways to skin a cat and one person really couldnt jepordise the entire nations ability to have justice served upon them.

 

Clearly the only real chance we have of significant success is if the CPS brings the action, as a private case of this magnitude would easily run into hundreds of thousands, quite possibly hit the million mark and take probably over two years or more to settle, i dont imagine an individual is going to rush out and do this really. If we all keep on collecting as much evidence as we can, combined with the OFT rulings and hopefully a judgement in the small claims then we may stand a chance.

 

Or perhaps this is bigger than all of us care to imagine