PhonepayPlus uses the F-word

[mike99]

No not that F-word ........

"Fraud"

PhonepayPlus works with newly-launched NFIB

In 2009, PhonepayPlus began working with the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), a Government-funded initiative operated and controlled by the City of London Police, to help bring together previously unconnected fraud information.

Yesterday, the Attorney General officially launched the NFIB, reflecting the importance of this initiative to the Government’s fight against fraud.

The aim of the NFIB, which is also working in partnership with other organisations in the public and private sector, is to enhance law enforcement capability and improve the understanding of the trends and patterns of fraud being undertaken in the UK.

PhonepayPlus is working with the NFIB in the following ways:

providing incidences of confirmed fraud that have occurred within the premium rate sector;
identifying cross-industry organised fraud, fraud networks, and prolific offenders;
increasing the NFIB’s understanding of new criminal trends and methods.
The National Fraud Authority (NFA), the Government’s strategic lead agency on fraud, has also recently launched Action Fraud, the UK’s first national fraud reporting centre. The service is a single point of contact for fraud victims, specifically individuals and small businesses, where they can report fraud and seek guidance and advice.

In addition to feeding information received from fraud reports into the NFIB and sharing these with police forces across the UK, the Action Fraud desk has also distributed intelligence reports to PhonepayPlus. All reports concerning premium rate fraud incidents submitted to PhonepayPlus via Action Fraud are fed into our complaints database to be dealt with in the same way as any other consumer complaint received through the PhonepayPlus Contact Centre or web reporting tool.

To find out more about Action Fraud, click here.

Now, while readers of these forums will greet this announcement with a great deal a scepticism, it is, I think we must concede, a step in the right direction.

The first step in solving a problem is, all too often, admitting you have it. It would seem that PhonepayPlus are finally beginning to see through their own hype and face up to reality.