Online Fraud. Do the Police Care

The Sunglasses Shop www.sunglasses-shop.co.uk received an order for 2 pairs of designer sunglasses with request that they were sent to another delivery address with the customer giving a different name for delivery as used to the credit card. Instantly checks go in to place on a nearly £300 order.

We contacted the actual card holder by using directory enquiries and he confirmed that he had not placed an order with us, and actually still had his card on himself. We concluded his card was probably cloned in the Caribbean. I then contacted the person who had placed the sunglasses order. I did this by Googling the delivery address and finding it was a work address. I spoke with the fraudster customer without letting on that we knew it was fraud.

With this information all in hand I thought we could get the fraud customer arrested but how wrong I was.

On Friday I called our local police station in Southend on Sea with the information. I faxed it all over and was told that it would be passed on to London where the order and the criminal worked. On Monday I called the appropriate police station and they had not received any documents. It turned out they were faxed to the wrong station. After a lot of work I had spoken to an office in Marylebone Police Station. I was asked to get Southend police to fax them the documents. The police office was not there on Mon so I faxed to Southend a copy of my conversation and all the information to London.

Not too much was done, and now, 2 week on I am still trying to track down the officer at Marylebone who is never there and apparently marked this case as case closed, no crime committed. Do the police care about online fraud? I don't think so and am now in the process of contacting the independent police complains commission to let them know.

I have spent hours on the phone on hold and at least 20 phone calls. All the information is there. This is an easy case (you would think!)

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