UK government’s new fraud strategy to ‘block scams at the source’

New National Fraud Squad will be backed by 400 new specialist investigator

The government has said it is stepping forward in the fightback against scammers, with action to block fraudulent communications at their source and allow suspect payments to be delayed.

The new fraud strategy will include banning cold calls on all financial products, such as those relating to insurance or sham cryptocurrency schemes, the government said.

It also plans to work with Ofcom to use new technology to further clamp down on number “spoofing”, so fraudsters cannot impersonate legitimate UK phone numbers.