PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Nuisance Calls (7 December 2020)

Fraudulent calls can have significant and devastating impacts on people’s lives, particularly the most vulnerable in society. As well as being a nuisance, cold calling is the most common method used to initiate fraud, especially relating to pensions. That’s why the government has taken action to ban pension cold calling.

HM Treasury has introduced a ban on pension cold calling in order to reduce the chance of individual’s being enticed into fraudulent schemes.

Further to this, Home Office has collaborated with UK Finance to run the Take Five fraud awareness campaign. The campaign is designed to equip the public to challenge fraudulent approaches with confidence – be they face-to-face, on the telephone or online.

The Government continues to work on practical solutions to address nuisance and scam calls. DCMS have provided over £1 million in the last 3 years to the National Trading Standards for distribution of call blocking devices to vulnerable people. This funding helped to protect some of the most vulnerable in society from nuisance calls and scams, including those originating from overseas.