The Howard League as victim of crime
Mar 23, 2012
from the entry by Frances Crook (CEO of the Howard League) on her blog:
The Howard League is a victim of crime. Our credit card was used to pay for stuff for someone who clearly had got hold of the details fraudulently. We think what happened was that when we had a supplier in to do some work on the building (I am not being too specific here for obvious reasons, but telling the story as a warning to others) they phoned through the details to an associate. The details were used several times and we would have picked it up at the end of the month, but the fraudster got over-confident and used it for a sum of over £1,000 and the bank noticed and put a stop to it. We are going to be reimbursed so the charity will not be out of pocket.
Naturally we told the police who issued us with a crime number and so far it appears have done little else. It would be pretty easy to pick this person up as they paid for their MOT on their car with the card and we phoned the garage which has the registration details. So it wouldn’t take Poirot or Morse to find them. I am not advocating severe sentencing, you will be relieved to hear. However, we all know that the best way to deter wrong doing is the fear of getting caught and it would appear that there is widespread fraud and people know they can carry on with impunity. This affects us all through corroding social trust as well as the financial penalties in higher insurance and bank charges.
....I quite often get accused [by] people [of being] on the side of the criminal and ignoring the needs of victims and nothing could be further from the truth. Our work aims to find the right response to wrong-doing so that it doesn’t keep being done. That does mean prompt and proportionate action, but the prompt bit is really important. I want the person who defrauded the Howard League apprehended and I would like to meet them in a restorative process. I don’t want them to keep doing it to other organisations or individuals.
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