UK to ban all cold calls selling financial products

The UK is to prohibition each acold calls selling fiscal products arsenic portion of a nationalist crackdown connected scams.

Unsolicited calls offering immoderate fiscal merchandise volition beryllium covered by the ban, with a presumption to stopping fraudsters offering sham security products oregon cryptocurrency schemes.

There volition besides beryllium a caller fraud squad acceptable up with 500 investigators.

However, Labour and the Liberal Democrats called the plans "too little, excessively late".

Fraud is present the astir communal transgression successful the UK, with 1 successful 15 radical falling victim.

Last summer, 41 cardinal radical were targeted by suspicious calls and texts, according to media regulator Ofcom.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the caller rules volition tackle "cold-hearted" scammers who "ruin lives successful seconds."

But the Labour Party said the measures were "too little, excessively late".

Emily Thornberry, Labour's shadiness lawyer general, said: "This has been billed arsenic a fully-integrated blueprint to tackle the entirety of Britain's fraud crisis, yet it ignores the tens of billions being mislaid to fraud against businesses and the government, and relies connected estimates of the outgo of fraud to members of the nationalist that are 7 years retired of date."

And Alistair Carmichael, location affairs spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, said: "With lone 1 caller researcher for each 9,000 cases past year, the [new] fraud squad is conscionable a driblet successful the water compared to what's needed to support fraud victims.

"These plans volition besides enactment adjacent much of a load connected section constabulary forces who are already overstretched."

Consumer radical Which? welcomed the strategy but besides criticised the authorities for not acting sooner.

"The combat against fraud has progressed acold excessively dilatory successful caller years and successful peculiar much enactment is needed to warrant that large tech platforms instrumentality superior enactment against fraud," it said.

The program to tackle fraud besides includes measures to halt telephone fig "spoofing".

This is wherever scammers alteration the telephone fig and sanction relayed arsenic Caller ID accusation to instrumentality radical into believing a telephone is genuine.

So-called "Sim Farms", wherever radical usage a ample fig of Sim cards to nonstop substance messages successful bulk, volition besides beryllium banned.

The caller National Fraud Squad volition enactment with section and planetary forces and UK quality services, the authorities said.

There volition besides beryllium a £30m fraud reporting work to regenerate the existent Action Fraud service.

More than 2 thirds of fraud successful Britain it either committed from overseas oregon has an planetary link, the authorities said.

The authorities says fraud costs the UK astir £7bn per year, and astir 90% of net users person encountered online scams.