Action Fraud was introduced as part of the Attorney General’s Fraud Review back in 2006 and has now finally gone live nationally following successful pilot schemes across the country. National figures suggest that Fraud costs this country £73 billion every year and that’s only based on the crimes that are actually reported!

If you believe that a fraud has been committed you can now report these crimes direct to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 following which you will receive a national crime reference number and they even provide a dedicated email address for people to contact, in order to get updates on their own fraud report.

This new concept of a One Stop Shop for reporting fraud allows ALL information collected to be collated nationally on a daily basis and sent to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) which is located with the City of London Police where it is analysed together with information obtained from government departments, financial institutions and many other organisations. Any reported fraud which results in useful intelligence or a line of enquiry that should be followed up will be sent by the NFIB direct to the individual force to investigate.

The benefits of this national call line is that it provides a SINGLE POINT of contact for victims WHEREVER they are located, and not only that but it will help considerably to identify repeat offenders approaching the vulnerable. For example if a fraud is reported to a police station in an area of Leeds, they will not necessarily know quickly that identical types of fraud are being carried out in York and London against the same type of victims.

The only exception to this and when police should be called rather than Action Fraud, will be if the crime is taking place now with the fraudster either still at the scene or is nearby or the victim or person reporting the fraud is vulnerable or significant evidence could be lost if the police do not attend immediately. In these cases always dial the number of your local police station if you know it or else dial 999.

To give an example of the sort of successes to date: two businessmen were recently jailed after making thousands of pounds from selling fake British Gas Insurance Policies from their offices in London.

It works! and Crime Prevention Products are doing everything they can to spread the word of this excellent initiative.