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<p>The Home Office collects information from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau
on the number of recorded frauds. From the information held internally it is not possible
to separately identify offences of fraud in which scam phone calls have been involved.</p><p>As
part of the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed a further £63m to the Home
Office to tackle economic crime, including fraud. This is in addition to the funding
the Home Office commits each year to the National Crime Agency, National Economic
Crime Centre and police forces, including the City of London Police as the national
lead force for fraud and the operator of the Action Fraud and National Fraud Intelligence
Bureau services.</p><p>The Home Office and DCMS are in regular discussion with the
telecommunication industry on ways to tackle scam phone calls and protect the public.
The Government has taken a range of actions to reduce the number of these calls. We
have supported the National Trading Standards Scams Team to roll out call blocking
devices to vulnerable people, helping to protect them from nuisance calls and scams.
In addition, the City of London Police, the national lead force for Fraud, has partnered
with Law Enforcement and Industry to combat call centre fraud from overseas jurisdictions.</p><p>However,
the best way to tackle this problem is to try and identify the sources of these calls
and stop them. We are encouraging the public to forward suspicious text messages to
7726 (which is free of charge) and continue to encourage anyone who has been a targeted
by a scam to report it. Action Fraud is the central police reporting point for all
victims of fraud and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website:
<a href="http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud" target="_blank">http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud</a>.</p><p>Using
this information, City of London Police, the National Cyber Security Centre and the
National Crime Agency are able to facilitate numbers being used for scam calls/texts
being blocked or removed.</p>
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