Real-life anguish and cost of frauds that target the vulnerable

When Kate Roberts met an American soldier through an online dating agency, she thought she'd struck gold.

The 47-year-old divorcee was soon in regular email contact with the man she believed to be a US sergeant stationed in Iraq and it wasn't long before the requests for money began. At first it was just a few hundred pounds for a new phone line, but by the time Miss Roberts wired the last payment of 12,000 and disovered her online lover was in fact a cover for a gang of Nigerian fraudsters she had loans and credit card bills totalling more than 80,000.

Forced to sell her house in an attempt to pay off the debts, it's the kind of trap most of us would like to think we wouldn't fall in to.

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Yet, according to figures released by the Office of Fair Trading today, one in 20 of us last year lost money in a scam. The vast majority were duped into handing over their bank details or paying an up-front fee to fraudsters who convinced them they were entitled to an inheritance or were helping to release funds from a corrupt country.

Most could easily cover their losses, but in the most serious cases, fraudulent gangs can get away with thousands, often from elderly victims.

"My father had been a successful businessman in Yorkshire and was enjoying a long and comfortable retirement, until the scam letters started to arrive," says Debbie. She prefers not to give her surname, but is backing a campaign to crackdown on the criminal gangs behind the scams.

"As soon as he responded to one, the volume increased until he was receiving up to 100 letters and telephone calls a day. He was convinced that he was involved in a legitimate business venture and no amont of reasoning, cajoling or argument could convince him that he was being conned.

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"Over a two-year period they stole 54,000, but the emotional pain was beyond reckoning.

"Every day for several years as he obsessed over these letters, he withdrew from society, he didn't have time for anything else and as I was desperately trying to get help to stop him squandering his latter years his health declined.

"The only reason my father eventually stopped participating in the fraud was because he ran out of money at the bank and I was eventually able to get his mail re-directed so I could screen it first. We have to find some way to stop these scam letters and emails because until we do more people's lives will be destroyed."

Just last week it was revealed Scotland Yard detectives had seized thousands of items of scam mail aimed at people in the UK. The letters, sent by professional fraudsters, encouraged people to invest in schemes like fake lotteries. Police say an estimated 3.5bn is scammed from UK citizens each year and with 2.4bn of it the result of mail scams, the OFT is now calling on people to bin the bogus letters in "Scamnesty" bins.

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"The reason people fall for these scams is because they are convincing," says Esther Rantzen, who built a career on exposing conmen on That's Life. "Scams have a devastating impact on people's lives. The conmen often deliberately target older people or people who are especially vulnerable. Stigma or embarassment can wrongly make victims think they are to blame and discourage them from reporting these crimes or seeking help. No-one should feel like this. People should feel able to speak to their friends, families and neighbours so we can put these con-artists out of business."