Anger over potential £7,500 con

The boss of a Black Country company which was almost duped into giving away £7,500 worth of scaffolding after being approached by fraudsters has now accused the police of not being interested in the case.

Because Robert Hughes and his staff at Imer Direct GB in Tividale realised it was a con before it was too late, he says neither police or the credit card company involved is interested because no crime was actually committed.

The construction company was approached by a man who was claiming to be a Nigerian reverend almost a fortnight ago.

The firm was asked for scaffolding to help build an orphanage in the African country.

“We emailed him back, gave him quotes, we even spoke to him on the phone, but it all seemed a bit suspicious,” explained Mr Hughes. “We told him we weren’t willing to send anything out before we were paid so he sent over the details of two credit cards, both of which turned out to be stolen,” Mr Hughes continued.

And Mr Hughes said that he tracked down the real owners of the cards yesterday. The were completely oblivious to the proposed transaction. But he now claims he has since been given short shrift by the authorities.

“The police don’t seem to want to know and the credit card company don’t want to know,” said Mr Hughes, the managing director of Imer.

“Because we caught them out before the fraud was actually committed there is apparently no crime, but I find it very strange indeed that I have all the contact details for these people and the are not chasing them up.

“While the people who own the cards would have been compensated, my company would have been down £7,500 which we would probably have had to write off,” he added.

West Midlands Police Force have now asked Mr Hughes to go back to their local station in order to log the incident.

Force spokeswoman Joanne Hunt said: “Mr Hughes needs to speak to the help desk at Smethwick police station in order to obtain a log number. He needs to say he wants to report an attempted fraud using stolen credit cards to the Smethwick Fraud Team,” she said.

“A member of the fraud team will then make contact with him within 24 hours,” she added.