- Professional fraud gangs are persistently and aggressively targeting the public, with nearly seven in ten Brits (69%)1 reporting that they’ve been targeted by scammers. Last year alone, the operator intercepted and blocked over £250 million in suspected fraudulent transactions — equivalent to stopping one every two minutes.
- New Freedom of Information (FOI) data reveals the police are suffering from a chronic lack of resourcing, with just 84 fraud convictions originating from each police force on average last year2 and three forces having no officers dedicated to investigating the crime.
- Virgin Media O2 is calling on Government to appoint a dedicated minister for fraud and overhaul how the police tackle it by creating a single centralised, specialised national body that handles all instances of fraud – backed with the necessary resources and focus to drastically cut this pernicious cross-border crime.
Police forces are not given enough power or resources to counter professional gangs of fraudsters committing crime without consequence, Virgin Media O2 has today warned as it calls on the new Government to make tackling fraud a priority.
The stark warning follows a series of new Freedom of Information requests to the Crown Prosecution Service, police forces across the country and internal company data revealing the extent of the problem.
Targeted by criminals looking to steal high value phones which are resold internationally where they can’t be blocked, Virgin Media O2 has invested millions in counter fraud measures and intervened to stop customers falling victim to fraud worth more than £250 million last year, blocking a suspected fraud transaction every two minutes.
To combat this growing problem, the business is today calling for Government to appoint a dedicated minister for fraud tasked with delivering a radical overhaul of fraud policing to tackle the epidemic which results in millions of Brits falling victim to professional fraudsters and suffering significant financial loss and long-lasting emotional stress.
With fraud now accounting for around 40% of all crime, the Fraud Strategy launched a year ago under the previous government has not done enough to empower police forces to prevent or prosecute fraudsters, with consumers and businesses being left to fend for themselves.
More justice needed for fraud victims
New Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, obtained by Virgin Media O2 from the Crown Prosecution Service, Action Fraud and police forces in England and Wales, reveal that in many cases, victims are being denied any real chance of justice.
Whilst there are multiple policing agencies working on fraud, the responsibility to investigate most fraud reports falls on the 43 individual police forces in England and Wales. The public is directed to report to Action Fraud – the National Fraud and Cybercrime reporting centre – which pass reports on to the relevant force.
Yet only 1 in 20 (6%) cases reported to Action Fraud ever reached police forces for investigation in the 2023/2024 financial year and for those that did, few resulted in charges.
On average, each police force brought forward cases which resulted in just 84 convictions last year with one police force serving a population of more than half a million people responsible for just 23 convictions. That’s despite the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimating there were more than 3.1 million fraud incidents last year alone.2
When forces were asked how many officers they have dedicated to investigating fraud, three police forces revealed they didn’t have any – despite each employing thousands of staff – highlighting how chronic under-resourcing has impacted the police’s ability to act.
Even when businesses work with the police on in-depth investigations and provide evidence linking hundreds of fraud cases worth six figure sums to identified suspects, criminals frequently evade justice.
Virgin Media O2 has hired former police officers to investigate prolific fraudsters and submitted 34 police-compliant evidence packs focused on cases where they believe there is realistic prospect of a conviction over the past two years. It has only been made aware of two successful prosecutions.
Rob Orr, COO at Virgin Media O2, said: “Fraud is at epidemic levels, with organised gangs of fraudsters operating professional call centres which relentlessly target Brits every second of every day.
“We’re constantly building our defences higher and sharing compelling evidence of what these gangs are up to but with no real deterrent in place, these criminals can repeatedly steal free from the threat of prosecution.
“Despite their best efforts, dedicated police officers are handcuffed to working through a patchwork of local forces, many of which lack the specialist skills and teams needed. Too often, this leaves them unable to act – even on slam-dunk cases.
“To help turn the tide, we urgently need Government to appoint a minister responsible for fraud and address the structural problems by creating a centralised, specialised and properly resourced national body to handle all instances of fraud to tackle this complex, cross-border crime.”
Most people in the UK have been targeted by scammers with devastating results
Long considered to be a victimless crime, new consumer research from Virgin Media O2 has revealed the extent to which fraud is plaguing the UK. The vast majority of Brits (69%) have been targeted by scammers or fraudsters, with a quarter saying they’ve been targeted at least weekly in the past year. On average, Brits lost a staggering £1,159 and spent 60 hours resolving issues after they had been defrauded.
Almost 1 in 5 people (17%) said no matter how much money was stolen they’d never report to the police with over half of Brits (58%) believing the level of police resources dedicated to fighting fraud is inadequate. 1
Structural change is needed to effectively combat fraud
Currently all but the most serious fraud cases are meant to be investigated by one of the 43 police forces in England and Wales. However, a typical fraud case could involve a criminal in one part of the country defrauding a victim who lives elsewhere with the stolen phone sent to yet another part of the country. Tackling these crimes requires very high levels of collaboration between the patchwork of police forces which – as FOI data shows – don’t always have officers dedicated to investigating fraud.
Virgin Media O2 is now calling on the new government to take accountability for stopping fraud at its source by appointing a dedicated fraud minister and creating a single centralised, specialised and properly resourced national policing body responsible for investigating all instances of fraud. This will bring together fraud specialists, enabling them to act across borders, share data and draw on local expertise as needed to fight fraudsters.
Virgin Media O2 is calling for the Government to:
- Equip this body with sufficient new officers to better match the number of fraud cases – at least doubling the existing commitment in the Fraud Strategy (i.e. from 400 to 800);
- Invest more to tackle persistent, criminal gangs that are committed to defrauding UK consumers;
- Appoint teams to work closely with businesses, with officers assigned to specific sectors like telecoms, to reduce consumer and business fraud; and
- Appoint a dedicated fraud minister with oversight of this organisation. Ensure they develop more ambitious targets to tackle fraud and are held to account through annual progress reports.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Example investigation: £250,000 of fraud losses and compelling evidence on two suspects, yet no justice.
Virgin Media O2’s investigation team spent more than two years building a compelling case against a large-scale organised crime gang targeting UK consumers over a multi-year period. The operator uncovered evidence which linked around £250,000 worth of fraudulent activity and hundreds of stolen devices to two individuals in the UK.
Despite their investigations team – made up of former-police officers – painstakingly linking hundreds of fraud cases back to two suspects and working closely with the police to provide a comprehensive evidence base two years ago, the case has stalled, and no charges have been brought.
The suspects who have defrauded many hundreds of victims continue to walk free with Virgin Media O2’s intelligence indicating this fraud ring continues to operate and target the public.
The operator has presented detailed evidence of systematic fraud by organised criminals to police forces on more than thirty occasions over the past two years, all of which it believes offers a realistic prospect of prosecution. Only two of them are understood to have led to a criminal prosecution.
1 Strand Partners’ specialist research team conducted an online survey of 5,247 members of the UK public between 07.06.24 – 19.06.24. The sample is representative by gender, age and NUTs 1 region, education, and income against the most recent ONS census data.
2 Freedom of Information requests made by Virgin Media O2 to the Crown Prosecution Service (July 2024)
ONS – Crime in England and Wales: year ending December 2023p
press enquiries
press enquiries