Flintshire is the fraud and internet crime hot spot of north Wales

Latest figures published on the Action Fraud website, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and internet crime, show Flintshire has the highest levels of fraud and financially motivated internet crime in north Wales.

The statistics represent crime and information reports submitted over the last five month and the data is based on information submitted to the agency and analysed.

The total figures for each county shown in the bar chart below are made up of five sub sections, they include Online Shopping and Auctions, Application Fraud (excluding Mortgages) Cheque, Plastic Card and Online Bank Accounts, Computer Software Service Fraud.

Flintshire had the highest number of incidents in all but one sub categories – Computer Software Service Fraud, the dubious honour went to Wrexham who had 32 incidents reported in the last five months, compared with twenty six in Flintshire.

Action Fraud is run by the City of London Police working alongside the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, they are responsible for assessment of the reports and ensure that fraud reports reach the right place, the City of London Police is the national policing lead for economic crime.

Flintshire Trading Standards regularly put out warnings regarding fraud and online scams.

Only last week,  27th August, residents were warned about a Facebook scam where a Facebook page advertising designer goods for sale ‘at knock down prices’, only allowed customers to order through inbox messaging with transactions carried out by bank transfer.

Once orders are placed the goods are never delivered, when one Flintshire resident questioned the seller, they became aggressive and threatening.

Many designer items can only be stocked and sold by authorised businesses, this is to provide confidence in the brand and the item and to assist in consumer protection.

Facebook sellers are not authorised to sell many of the ‘designer items’ they list for sale, which means there is a very real possibility that the items are counterfeit and the seller could be running a scam.

This is just one of the many examples of online scams that are rife on social media sites such as Facebook.

Action Fraud have produced an A-Z of Fraud to help people when they feel they may have been a victim of fraud, you can also find a host of valuable resources including information on how to protect yourself from fraud, click on the link to find out more actionfraud.police.uk