UK to ban cold calling, insurance selling and crypto to tackle fraud

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The UK is set to ban cold calling that sells financial products, including insurance and cryptocurrency, in a bid to tackle fraud, which is costing the country an estimated $7 billion ($8.7 billion) per year.

Announcing its new anti-fraud strategy, the UK pledged 400 new jobs to update its intelligence-led approach to policing. The government will work with telecoms regulator Ofcom to use new technology to undermine phone number spoofing, so fraudsters cannot impersonate legitimate UK phone numbers.

Fraud is now the most common crime in the UK, with 1 in 15 people falling victim to it. The government aims to pass laws that ensure more victims of fraud get their money back, by requiring financial institutions to reimburse victims of authorized fraud.

“Scam artists ruin lives in seconds, deceiving people in the most despicable ways in order to line their pockets,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a statement. “We will fight these fraudsters, wherever they try to hide.”

The government has also pledged to stop common methods used by scammers to reach thousands of people at once, such as so-called “SIM farms”, and to review the use of mass text messaging services. to keep these technologies out of reach of criminals.

Photo credit: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

Copyright 2023 Bloomberg.

Topics Trends Fraud

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