Fraudsters are targeting people to list items on their behalf on popular online auction sites. The scam involves a job offer to sell desirable items at below market value and receive money from any potential buyers. The ‘work from home’ job will usually require retaining 10% of the money received as a “salary” and fraudsters will ask that the remaining funds are sent to them via bank transfer or money transfer.

In these cases the proposed items being sold do not exist and are therefore not dispatched to the proposed buyers. This will usually result in the buyer making a complaint concerning the individual who has listed the items. This can result in your bank account being closed by the bank for suspected fraud or money laundering and being held accountable for reimbursing the potential buyers.

Protect yourself:

• Do not list items on online auction sites on behalf of others you do not know or trust.
• Be vigilant of ‘work from home’ jobs which involve passing funds through your bank account.
• Meet face to face with any potential employer
• Question job offers which seem “too good to be true”.

Last year Londons cyclists identifed at least one action to be taken in each ward to make the roads safer. Although led by the capitals’ cyclists the actions bring road safety improvements across London for everyone.

During the local elections each candidiate was asked to support the proposals and seek the improvements if elected.

A few of these promisses have been met but many haven’t. The Havering cycling community is now working on a petition to remind the councillors that we still want to make our roads safer.

If you would like to support the petition then please sign up at

Havering Space for Cycling Petition

Remember even if you personally don’t cycle you, are a pedestrian and these improvements will help you too, also your friends and family may be cyclists so ask them to sign the petition.

You will be able to sign up and also see what improvements we have asked for in Havering .

These include:

• lowering vehicle speeds
• removing through motor traffic on minor/residential streets
• installing physically protected space for cycling on main roads
• opening up our green areas for cycling
• creating safe cycle routes to schools
• improving London’s town centres to make them easier to visit by bike

You can find out more at What is Space for Cycling?

Fraudsters regularly hack into personal online accounts to obtain details which will allow them to defraud you. To prevent fraudsters, it’s very important to use strong passwords when setting up and accessing online accounts and online banking.

Passwords should be memorable enough not to have to write them down and long enough to be unique and hard to guess, which will ensure they are less vulnerable to being stolen. If it is not possible to remember passwords a password manager could be used to store them securely.

Protect yourself:

• Make sure passwords are memorable so that you don’t have to write them down. Make sure they are unique.

• Th!nk ab0ut how you could change the l3tters in your n0rmal passw0rds to make them more difficult to gue55!

• Use long, non-dictionary words and use different ones for each of your personal accounts and online banking. Make sure you change them regularly.

• Make sure passwords are not stored on devices that have shared access by other people, for example in internet cafes and when using other public Wi-Fi.

If you believe you have become a victim of account hacking, change your passwords immediately and report to Action Fraud: www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud

Jan Beat

Havering Museum has published its winter events schedule. These include:

National Archive, Saturday, 24 January at 1pm
Family Tree Workshop, Saturday 31 January at 1pm
Beer Tasting Evening at the Golden Lion on Monday, 16 February, 7pm
Romford Market Pubs talk – Patricia Pound

For more information on these and other events visit http://www.haveringmuseum.org.uk/whatson.php

Or download the following document

Trifold programme Dec February 2014

Due to circumstances beyond our control the April Forum will be held on Thursday 16th April at 10:30 a.m.