Fraud protection vital to consumer confidence, says Which?

With online scams becoming more sophisticated and a case of fraud being reported every minute, it's clear more must be done to tackle this problem.

But consumers can only do so much to protect themselves from falling victim to fraudsters.

This is why today we are launching a new campaign – Safeguard us from Scams - calling on the Government's Joint Fraud Taskforce to investigate by the end of the year what more businesses could be doing to better protect their customers from fraud. We also want the Government’s Taskforce to investigate whether companies are taking enough responsibility when a customer gets scammed.

Only a month ago, the Met Police Commissioner misguidedly suggested that consumers should not be refunded if they failed to protect themselves. However, it is very rarely as simple as that, with scams becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Our most recent research shows that the public disagree that they are solely responsible for vigilance against fraud. Eighty-five percent of people think businesses should have equal or greater responsibility than consumers for protecting them from online fraud and scams.

We have also found evidence that fear of scams is starting to affect consumer behaviour, which will have wider economic effects if people aren’t comfortable shopping, paying and sharing information online. Half of people (48%) say they do not use certain online products, services or apps for fear of being targeted by scammers. Clearly this is worrying news, which is why government and business need to work together to review their practices and processes to help safeguard the systems we use every day to get things done online.

We welcome the establishment of the Joint Fraud Taskforce by the Home Secretary in February this year. But the remit of the Taskforce must be widened to reflect that scams are impacting on a growing number of consumers.

We want the Government’s Joint Fraud Taskforce to:

• Examine whether companies are taking enough responsibility when their customers are defrauded

• Investigate what improvements should be made to the processes, systems and practices firms use to prevent fraud, and

• Recommend, by the end of the year, how companies can better protect their customers from fraud.

Consumers can and do take sensible steps to protect themselves - but it is important that government and businesses take their responsibilities seriously too. It is time for them to step up and safeguard us from scams.​

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