Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to (a) reduce incidences and (b) raise awareness of delivery text scams.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Fraudsters are sophisticated and will exploit any vulnerabilities they can, especially as more of us find ourselves at home and online.
We are working hard to tackle fraud. As part of the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed a further £63m to the Home Office to tackle economic crime, including fraud. This is in addition to the funding the Home Office commits each year to the National Economic Crime Centre in the NCA, and police forces, including over £15m each year to the City of London Police as the national lead force for fraud.
The Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), a specialist unit which was set up last year in collaboration with City of London Police, the Metropolitan Police and UK Finance, recently made 8 arrests as part of an investigation in Royal Mail text scams (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57226704).
However, we recognise there is still more to do, and are working closely with DCMS, the telecommunication industry, regulators and consumer groups to tackle fraud and close those vulnerabilities (e.g., like the ability to ‘spoof’ the number of a legitimate organisation) criminals too easily exploit in order to protect the public.
We are also raising awareness among the public to help them protect themselves.
Royal Mail has issued guidance on how to spot fake emails and communications and what to do if you have received one. More information can be found on the Royal Mail’s website: https://www.royalmail.com/help/scam-examples.
Action Fraud issued an alert on delivery scams on 23 December last year (found here: https://www.actionfraudalert.co.uk/da/357020/Scam%20warning%20-%20Fake%20DPD%20emails%20and%20texts.html).
We continue to encourage the public to forward suspicious text messages to 7726 (which is free of charge) and anyone who has been a targeted by a scam to report it. Action Fraud is the national reporting service for all victims of fraud and cybercrime and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reported instances of fraud committed by fake travel operators there were in each year since 2010.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects quarterly data on the number of reports of fraud made to Action Fraud and that have been recorded as criminal offences by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB). This data is published as official statistics by the Office for National Statistics on a quarterly basis and is available from June 2015 to December 2020 in table A5 below:
It is not possible to distinguish how many reports of fraud committed by fake travel operators were recorded as these could fall under the various fraud types, such as ‘Time share and holiday fraud’, ‘Ticket fraud’ and ‘Other fraud’ depending on the circumstances.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with (a) social media companies and (b) online accommodation booking platforms on tackling holiday and travel related fraud since the recent easing of international travel restrictions.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Fraudsters will use any hook to commit these crimes and COVID-19 has been no exception. We have seen criminals exploiting people’s unease and fear of the pandemic through opportunistically selling bogus PPE, running phishing campaigns impersonating government departments, and even vaccine fraud.
As restrictions begin to ease, it is important that we continue to remain vigilant to any risks and vulnerabilities. That is why we are engaging with the private sector to discuss the threat from online fraud and the need to prevent fraud and protect the public on these platforms.
As set out in our Economic Crime Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/economic-crime-plan-2019-to-2022), we are clear that a public- private partnership is essential in tackling fraud. Government, industry, law enforcement, regulators and consumer groups are in regular conversation with the aim of protecting the public from fraud. This includes developing some voluntary charters of the actions that certain industries, including online platforms, will take to prevent fraud.
The Government will build on this work through our Fraud Action Plan, an ambitious approach grounded in prevention, education, effective enforcement and regulatory reforms that will be published after the Spending Review.
We continue to encourage anyone who has been a targeted by fraud to report it. Action Fraud is the central police reporting point for all victims of fraud and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime. This information is being used by the City of London Police alongside crime reports to identify, disrupt and stop fraudsters.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of people who have fallen victim to scammers purporting to be part of the delivery or courier industry since March 2020.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects data on the number of fraud offences recorded by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) but cases relating to delivery or courier fraud are not separately identifiable.