The Government’s national crackdown on scams – first outlined earlier this week – has been branded “too little, too late” by opposition parties, with even consumer organisation Which? questioning why ministers had not acted sooner.
The new measures are designed to close the routes that scammers use to target victims, including by banning cold calls on all financial products – such as types of insurance or sham crypto currency schemes – and working with Ofcom to use new technology to further clamp down on number ‘spoofing’.
Exactly which financial products will be covered will be decided after a consultation, with the ban expected to be brought in this summer.
The plans also include the establishment of a new “elite team” of specialist investigators, the National Fraud Squad, which will overhaul how these crimes are investigated by taking a “proactive, intelligence-led approach”, backed by 400 new specialist investigators.
It will work with local forces, international partners and the UK intelligence community to target fraud cells which target millions of Brits each day.
But Labour shadow attorney general Emily Thornbury said the plans ignored “the tens of billions being lost to fraud against businesses and the government, and relies on estimates of the cost of fraud to members of the public that are seven years out of date”.
Labour claimed the Government has “repeatedly” left fraud out of the crime figures and they have “no interest in bringing fraudsters to justice”.
SNP tech spokesperson Carol Monaghan said the ministers had been “slow to protect vulnerable people”, adding that “cruelly, pensioners are often the target of such scam artists and the effects can be devastating. She insisted dding the Government plans and funding were “insufficient” to tackle the scale of the problem.
Meanwhile, Lib Dem home affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said: “With only one new investigator for every 9,000 cases last year, the [new] fraud squad is just a drop in the ocean compared to what’s needed to protect fraud victims. These plans will also put even more of a burden on local police forces who are already overstretched.”
Consumer group Which? also criticised the Government for not acting sooner but did welcome the measures, adding: “More action is needed to guarantee that big tech platforms take serious action against fraud.”
The strategy aims to reduce fraud by 10% on 2019 levels by 2025.
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