We were delighted to help Dennis recently with a Royal Mail fraud case. Dennis came to us a few days after Royal Mail Investigators had contacted him accusing him of making fraudulent claims.
Dennis was asked to attend Derby Police Station for a voluntary interview.
Dennis was scared but didn’t realise how serious this case could potentially come if Royal Mail decided to proceed with criminal charges. Royal Mail fraud is a serious allegation.
Dennis was the owner of a Computer Repair Shop where people would trade in their old computers, and then Dennis would sell on the components from these computers.
When Dennis sold the items he would ship them out through Royal Mail delivery.
Dennis ran this business for 5 – 7 years.
When Dennis sent out these parcels he accepted that there was a risk that they would get lost in the post.
For the first 4-5 years of running this business Dennis just accepted that it was one of the risks and when a parcel went missing he would contact the client and either arrange a full refund, and/or arrange for a replacement item to be shipped out to them.
Obviously, every time Dennis had to either refund the customer, or send out a new item, he was effectively paying for two items and possibly two lots of postage.
In around 2015 Dennis noticed that the amount of parcels that were either being damaged in the post or lost was dramatically increasing. Therefore his business had to pay out large expenses to replace these items, and try to minimise the damage in terms of negative customer feedback.
Dennis decided that enough was enough and so started making claims for every parcel that was either damaged or lost.
Dennis did this, but he soon realised how much work this would involve, and so started to slightly increase the value of the claim to cover his time that was spent making the claims.
After receiving a few of Dennis’s claims the Royal Mail started requesting more proof about the claims he was making, as they had suddenly received 50 claims from Dennis over a short space of time.
The Royal Mail interviewed Dennis in relation to these claims, and informed him that they would finish investigating the matter and then decide whether to charge Dennis with Royal Mail Fraud.
Dennis called us because he was worried. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t just want to sit around and wait to be charged.
That is where Forrest Williams could help.
We took a full statement from Dennis, we got to know all about his business, and his personal life.
Our plan was to put forward Dennis’ side of the story to the Investigators to try and avoid a charge even being brought against him.
We obtained all the evidence available from the Royal Mail, reviewed everything and then sent out our representations to the investigators in this case.
One of the investigators contacted us and informed us that our letter of representations had had a very favourable effect on Dennis’ case.
The Royal Mail investigators had their firm of solicitors review the file and the decision was made that they would take no further action with this case.
Dennis had this to say after he was told the good news:
“I just wanted to say thanks for all the best advices and everything you have done! if it wasn’t for your professional service I couldn’t get away without prosecution on this matter. I will recommend your company and services.”
Dennis could have waited to be charged with Royal Mail Fraud and then instructed a firm of solicitors to try and get him found Not Guilty. This would have resulted in him having to go and stand in a criminal trial, have a case hanging over his head for several months, and several thousands of pounds worth of legal fees.
Because Dennis came to Forrest Williams he managed to avoid all of this, and the case against him was closed before it really even opened.
If you need help for any type of fraud, call our expert team now on 01623 397200
