CUMBRIA Trading Standards is urging those who want to fight back against scammers to become scam marshals. A Scam Marshal is any resident in the UK who has been targeted by a scam and now wants to fight back and take a stand against scams. Scam Marshals do this by sharing their own experiences, helping others to report and recognise scams and sending any scam mail that they receive to the NTS Scams Team so that it can be utilised as evidence in future investigative and enforcement work. This work by Scam Marshals plays a huge role in helping to stop the scam mail altogether and Friends Against Scam are always on the lookout for more recruits.
Widower Thomas Wyness is fighting back after being targeted by scammers
For nine years, widower Thomas Wyness was bombarded with letters telling him he d won high-value cash prizes, televisions and cars. All he needed to do, the letters told him, was send a small sum of money to an overseas postbox to claim it.
But while the prizes never arrived, his losses quickly added up. Thomas, now 90, estimates he sent around £11,000 to countries including the Czech Republic, Sweden and Hong Kong.
But now he is fighting back. Thomas is one of more than 1,700 scam victims recruited by National Trading Standards (NTS) to dish the dirt on scammers.