The Home Office’s comms team is to increase the scope of the Stop! Think Fraud campaign, which helps individuals and businesses to identify and prevent fraud.
The campaign, launched in 2024, currently covers fraud related to areas ranging from banking and holidays to recruitment and online shopping.
Officials are currently working to widen the campaign to include warnings about “high harm” types of fraud such as romance, pension and investment fraud.
The work is being done as part of the government’s new fraud strategy launched this month to “protect the public from the UK’s most pervasive crime”, which costs the economy more than £14bn a year.
The strategy outlines how a new online crime squad is being set up and will come into operation next month.
“The new Online Crime Centre will bring together specialists from the government, police, intelligence agencies, banks, mobile networks and major tech firms to drive co-ordinated action against fraud,” according to the government.
“Effective communication and public education are critical to building a society resilient to fraud. Given the growing and evolving nature of the fraud threat, this cannot be stagnant or focus on a single demographic. Rather, it must pre-empt and respond to the threat.” the strategy states.
It adds that from next month the Stop! Think Fraud campaign “will expand to cover a broader range of fraud types including high harm frauds”.
The campaign will also “strengthen its advice for small businesses by working with trusted partners such as the Federation of Small Businesses, and explore technology to improve guidance accessibility”.
The “broader ambition” for the campaign is to continue to work with industry “to encourage the uptake of protective behaviours by integrating messaging into their customer communications and delivering joint activity”.
The strategy states: “This will help individuals to identify and make use of the range of services that are available, some of which are embedded within tech, telecommunications, and banking platforms, to help protect themselves more effectively."