OIL FRAUDS IN ENGLAND

Shannon News, 9 April 1926, Page 3

OIL FRAUDS IN ENGLAND

WOMAN VICTIMS ABE FREQUENTLY TRICKED LONDON, Feb. 1. "Every trick which has made' the United States too warm for them is now being: employed in this country by the Aemiracn salesmen of worthless land and oil plots. - They are concentrating on fleecing women, who, accustomed to deal with British stockbrokers of repute, place implicit faith in all'that they are told. Their chief victims are those women of moderate means who live in the country in comfortable circumstances and have money to invest. The following is a .typical example of their methods: — In 1923 a woman living in the West of England was visited by a man from London who succeeded in selling her for £5 a plot of so-called oil land in America. She heard nothing more of this investment for two years and then, early in 1925 another plausible tout called and persuaded her to surrender her oil plot and another f 100, for shares in a company which had been formed to develop the land in which she had an interest. He drew roseate pictures of a rap-idly-made fortune, but two more men called on her just before Christmas.

They told a long and involved story" of - land deals and developments, and succeeded in convincing her that unless she parted with more money the £lO5 she had already invested would be lost. These men so frightened her by talking about her liability as a shareholder and the necessity for saving the capital already invested that she part- > ed with another £650, making the total investment £755. Up to this time the woman acted on her own initiative, but she at last mentioned, the transaction to a friend,.; and he speedily discovered that she , had given her money to a concern > which was not worth proceeding against.