Never mind the recession, financial crime seems healthy and can be incredibly sophisticated. One minute after paying a bill via my mobile using an automated system, I get 2 text messages. One is thanks for paying the bill with a 16 digit reference, while the other alerts me to a new Voicemail message. Calling 901, I hear a recorded message made by a well-spoken English lady from Abbey’s Fraud Department. My name is inserted into an otherwise standard recorded message quoting a number 0845 356 0024 asking me to call them urgently. It was reassuring on holiday in Europe last year, when Abbey called me in person or sent texts regarding what seemed to be unusual transactions, but never anything automated like this. Something sounds a bit strange, so I type the number into Google and surprise, surprise it is a phone spam number and there are two links to:  www.phonespamfilter.co.uk Out of curiousity, I type in my own mobile number into Google, but nothing matches – quite a relief. Most scary is the fact that the whole system is completely automated. No boiler rooms of villains trying to flog bogus shares or other scams. Everything from picking up the key numbers out of the ether, personalising the voice message, to sending me the text, is automated. Several times throughout the day I get a call from the same number even though I have not called it. N.B. If you fall for a scam like this, your bank will not reimburse you.

This type of scam works on a simple numbers principle that enough will be fooled by it. In the days before computers, there were Phone Booth Indians. You get a phone call “Hi, my name’s Joe and I’ve got a tip for the **** race on Saturday…Never mind if you don’t usually gamble, sir. Why not try your luck and if you win, would you please send US$5 (or a percentage of the winnings) to this address? Good Luck…..Ten people are called for the first horse, ten people for the next horse and so on, until all the horses are covered. More of this stuff in:  http://www.lybrary.com/telephone-booth-indian-p-4209.html

One very obvious point that is usually overlooked in these interesting times, is that the one commodity  which we have never had so much of, is Money. Note that I am not quoting Prime Minister Harold MacMillan in his famous speech “most of our people have never had it so good!” Even without the recent addition of Trillions to the world banking system, there are plenty of people sitting on piles of the stuff and willing to invest in good ideas provided the required financial information is presented in the usual (and preferably digital) format. A common mistake is not to ask for enough and spreadsheet programmes like the original Visicalc http://www.bricklin.com/visicalc.htm and ubiquitous MS Excel make playing around with the numbers child’s play compared to using a calculator, pencil & rubber* and handwritten figures on accountants columned paper.

People with an idea but no clue how to put a business plan together for example, could start with looking at  http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/home?domain=www.businesslink.gov.uk&target=http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/ where there is a lot of help organised via local branches. Some of the help is free, some of it is subsidised by the Government and a small part charged at full rate for the professionals concerned, but the latter are unlikely to be needed until the business plan and everything is well developed.

It is a new tax year and there are rumours again that Higher Rate Income Tax Relief on pension contributions will be restricted to Basic Rate Income Tax. Interesting to see how this fits in with the already announced erosion of the Personal Allowance (the bit you can earn before you start paying Income tax) which currently is £6,035. From 6th April next year, if you earn > £100,000 this will be lost at the rate of £1 for every £2 earned over this amount up to one half of the Personal Allowance and if you earn > £140,000, the same loss for the second half of the Personal Allowance. As the tax partner at a firm of West End accountants explains, this is equivalent to a top Income Tax rate of 60 per cent – Old Labour lives and breathes. Simple ways to take advantage of this (sic) and get the tax back might be single pension contributions &/or Salary Sacrifice – not as daft as it sounds when the employer passes on some of their National Insurance saving.

The Budget itself will be the latest ever on 22nd April and just through my letterbox, HMRC reminds me that a new tax return is required for the new fiscal year. Deadlines are 31 October 2009 for paper returns and 31 January 2010 for on-line returns www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/index/htm

Meanwhile, colleagues at www.in2consulting.co.uk are not letting the grass grow under their feet, and have joined up with 7 other firms to launch a new fee-based wealth management service called Aurora getting themselves a good write-up in the FT Personal Finance section http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/957908dc-25c5-11de-be57-00144feabdc0.html

Another example of the slow but sure move from commission-based remuneration to fees is an announcement last week from Axa that they will no longer pay commission on group pension business so any employer setting up an Axa pension scheme for their employees is going to have to pay for the advice directly. Not much sign of this for protection business e.g. Death-in-Service benefit or ordinary life insurance, but a very clear trend in investment and pension business. Benefits like the former are often ignored when starting a new job, so employed people reading this might like to check their Staff Benefits Handbook or equivalent, to see exactly what their employers provide besides salary.

Apart from life insurance, the ultimate kind that one might not wish to claim on would probably be for cosmetic surgery which has gone wrong, but fortunately this can now be covered via   http://www.lloyds.com/News_Centre/Features_from_Lloyds/ and since there seems litle sign of a recession in this business, well timed.   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/beauty/5159931/Cosmetic-surgery-From-boom-to-bigger-busts.html

* eraser for my US readers