28 January 2009 – The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) will ask the public to fight back against scammers during the first two weeks of February.
In 2008, the OFT organised the first Scams Awareness Month to highlight the fact that some 3 million Britons fall victim to a scam each year. Scams cost the UK economy an estimated £3.5 billion a year.
This year's Scams Awareness Month will run for two weeks only, from 2 to 15 February. During this period people can deposit scam mail in 'Scamnesty' bins in libraries and other public buildings across the country.
The scam mailings will be collected by the OFT's Scambusters team and will be used to "support the OFT’s investigations into the scale of the problem in the UK."