Action Fraud ‘disappointed’ with ‘inaccurate and misleading’ coverage in national media
Action Fraud has criticised what it says is “inaccurate and misleading” coverage of its work that appeared in the Daily Mail’s ‘This is Money’ section.
It claims the article – under the headline ‘I fell victim to a Facebook scam and the police advised me to write a letter of complaint to Mark Zuckerberg’ – makes “a number of inaccurate claims about a report made to Action Fraud following a social media account being hacked”.
Action Fraud says these included:
- That the victim would be assigned a case manager within 28 days;
- That the victim was told to write a letter to the ‘boss of Meta’, which owns Facebook; and
- That the call handler helped her draft a letter and that the call handler had a template of what the letter should say.
Action Fraud said the journalist also did not use all of the information provided to them in response to the questions they asked, including that the person in this case was not told to write a letter.
“The article also gives a misleading report on the overhaul to Action Fraud, which was always planned due to a natural end to current supplier contracts,” said Action Fraud.
Action Fraud and the City of London Police, which runs the service as the national policing lead for economic crime, said it was important to make clear and to address the claims made in the article, which was published on Wednesday (August 23).
In a joint statement they said: “All reports made to Action Fraud, whether by phone or online, are sent to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) for an initial assessment.
“Due to the volume of fraud reports received each month (around 35,000), this initial assessment can take up to around 28 days.
“Once the assessment has been completed, the person who made the report will receive a letter from the NFIB explaining the next steps. This may include whether the report has been passed to a police force for them to consider investigative opportunities. Neither Action Fraud or the NFIB have investigative powers.
“As stated to the Daily Mail, Action Fraud does not advise people to write letters to companies or individuals and did not do so in this case.
“Call handlers at Action Fraud have standard operating procedures to follow and providing advice telling people to write letters to particular individuals is not within any policies that Action Fraud and the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit (NECVCU) use.
“Due to these standard operating procedures and policies, Action Fraud call handlers would not draft a letter nor would they have templates for letters.”
The statement adds: “Details about the replacement system for Action Fraud has been made publicly available here. It was also covered in the Government’s National Fraud Strategy and Beating Crime Plan.
“Action Fraud and the City of London Police find it disappointing that despite clear information being provided to the journalist both in writing and through conversations over the phone, the publication has continued to write a factually inaccurate news article.”