Camilla's Cousin Was Benefit Thief

A cousin of the Duchess of Cornwall who committed “significant and sophisticated” benefit frauds was jailed after a sheriff rejected suggestions that mental illness was to blame. Dru Edmonstone, whose great-grandmother was Alice Keppel, Edward VII’s mistress, defrauded the state, Stirling council and the borough of Kensington and Chelsea out of thousands of pounds for more than three years. He initially denied the charges and when presented with evidence began to display “bizarre, inexplicable, extreme and at times concerning behaviour”, his lawyer, John Mulholland, said.

However, Mr Mulholland said that having obtained a psychiatric report, he was satisfied that no medical condition contributed towards his client’s fraud. The former financier also fraudulently claimed thousands in housing benefit, some for a mews cottage in Kensington. Between January 2014 and April 2017 he pocketed £60,000 and channelled the money into spread- betting.

Jailing him for 21 months, Sheriff Wyllie Robertson said a report by a psychiatrist revealed “a long history of deception and fraud” including altering GPs’ prescriptions. Edmonstone was appearing for sentencing after pleading guilty in January. Kyrsten Buist, for the prosecution, said that Elyssa Edmonstone, his sister, had been living abroad and inquired about making additional national insurance payments.

She found that the Department for Work and Pensions had her brother’s address listed for her. Investigators found he had made telephone calls to the department pretending to be Elyssa. In another scam, he claimed tax credit and disability living allowance by pretending that he was looking after a 12-year-old child with autism, ADHD and depression. In January 2014 HMRC received a telephone call from a woman who said she was Marie-Laurence Edmonstone (Edmonstone’s ex-wife). The woman answered security questions before handing the phone to Edmonstone.

Once the customer record has been securely transmitted and stored the merchant can then initiate transactions remotely without having to access credit card or electronic check information directly. This process is accomplished without the merchant storing the customer's payment information in their local database or payment application. If you're using a PCI Compliant point of sale solution and you do not store payment data you're already in good shape.

However, merchants should contact their merchant account provider for more information. Fraud prevention is a necessary activity for traditional and online merchants. Exposing your business to fraudulent transactions and high chargeback ratios is bad for business and could cause you to lose your merchant account. The leading real-time payment gateway services provide advanced fraud protection tools. However, many fraud prevention techniques can be implemented at no additional costs.

When I say "credit card fraud" you think about stolen card numbers and identity theft. There's another kind of fraud, and if you accept credit cards you need to be highly aware of it. You get a call from someone with a common name. Think John Smith, Jenny Jones or Hector Sanchez.

The caller claims that his bank asked him to call your law firm to get a check refund for a debit card transaction dated the "15th". Sounds legit. Except the caller never bought anything from you. If you issue the refund, you can bet that if you cut a check, you'll never get your money back. It's not, and incidents of "refund fraud" are rapidly increasing for service businesses like law firms who are often easy marks for scammers because either they are new to taking credit cards or simply aren't used to dealing with fraudsters.

Fortunately stopping refund fraud is easy. Only give card payment refunds by crediting the customer's credit card. Never issue a check or hand out cash for any credit card transaction, even if you know the refund actually is legitimate. This prevents the customer from being able to charge back the credit card transaction after they've been given a refund by check.

Limiting card refunds to the card used to pay prevents fraudulent refund demands cold: a scammer will quickly give up when they realize that you are not going to give them money back in a form that they can use. Always check your sales history to ensure the person claiming to be your customer is actually is your customer, and has actually paid you before issuing a refund.

Invoices and receipts are easily doctored with modern photo editing software, making it easy for scammers to present what looks like legitimate paperwork. 1. The California Attorney General's office suggests checking an ID before issuing a refund. Checking an ID is a very good way to ensure that your customer's credit card is controlled by someone who has stolen your customer's identity. 2. If all else fails, and the alleged customer is insistent about the refund, suggest that he or she take it up with whoever issued the credit or debit card. If there is a legitimate charge, you will get a chargeback notice. If not, you'll never hear from the fraudster again.

Credit card fraud is more prevalent in this day and age than it ever was. With fraudulent transactions on the rise, it is more important than ever to guard your number to minimize crooked activity by unscrupulous identity thieves. 1. Keep track of your card every time you use it. Make sure that you get it back as soon as possible. Try not to allow your card out of sight when possible. 2. Be cautious to whom you give you credit card.