The government is to ban cold calling for insurance and cryptocurrencies, among other financial products, as part of a wider fraud crackdown.
Under its programme Fraud Strategy: Stopping Scams and Protecting the Public, the government will work closely with Ofcom to use new technology to undermine phone number “spoofing” and prevent fraudsters from impersonating legitimate UK phone numbers.
Fraud is now the most common crime in the UK, affecting one in 15 people and costing around £7bn a year. The government wants to introduce laws that would require financial institutions to reimburse victims of authorised fraud. It has also pledged to stop methods used by scammers to reach thousands of people simultaneously (such as “SIM farms”), and to review the use of mass-texting services to keep such technology out of scammers’ hands.
Meanwhile, an analysis of pension scam assessments has revealed that one in four people could be at risk of a pension scam. The analysis by helpandadvice.co.uk highlighted several red flags: 17% of people were told they could achieve higher investment returns if they transferred funds, 15% were urged to make a quick decision and 9% were told that the adviser knew of loopholes that would allow them to access higher levels of tax-free cash.
