Elderly suffer in ‘tidal wave’ of fraud cases

BRITAIN is suffering a ‘tidal wave’ of fraud, with hundreds of thousands of victims suffering in silence, the victims’ commissioner has warned.

Dame Vera Baird QC said people often feel ‘mentally raped’ by scammers, but were too ashamed to tell their families.

Some elderly parents even carry their secret to their deathbeds if they have been duped out of cash they intended to leave to their children.

It is estimated about 700,000 fraud victims a year ‘suffer profoundly’ from the trauma – but Dame Vera said it was ‘extremely disappointing’ that most get ‘little to no victim care’.

The victims’ commissioner – a former Labour MP and Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumabout bria – said it was time to take fraud seriously and end the ‘victim blaming’ culture around scams.

She said her inbox was filled with stories of elderly people who had spiralled into depression or were too afraid to leave their homes after falling foul to con artists.

But Dame Vera dismissed the stereotype of the ‘gullible’ older victim and said the authorities needed to stop hiding behind the excuse that levels of fraud had become ‘unmanageable’.

‘When we think of the word “victim”, fraud is probably not one of the first crimes that springs to mind,’ she said.

‘But there are people out there who are really suffering. Sometimes, older people who lose money they intended to leave to their children don’t want to talk about it because they feel ashamed.

‘Younger people also feel that they’ll be regarded as foolish by all their friends, so they don’t talk it and bottle it up. Fraud can be a deeply intimate and interpersonal crime, causing long-lasting emotional trauma as well as financial loss.’

Dame Vera said victims of fraud deserved the same support as victims of other crimes, and called for the Government to deliver on its promise to publish its fraud strategy this year.

She said the public needed clarity over who to call if they were defrauded, adding it was a ‘ big problem’ that many were bounced between their local police force and Action Fraud.

She welcomed the expansion of the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit, which supports vulnerable victims, but said many ‘ still seem likely to be falling through the net’.

Dame Vera added: ‘ Victims do not know who to turn to when they are looking for redress through the criminal justice system.

‘About 15 per cent of fraud victims report it to Action Fraud, but only a minority get a judicial outcome. So even the few who do report fraud get anything out of reporting it.’

A report by the victims’ commissioner last year found that almost a quarter of all fraud victims are likely to be deeply affected by their experience.

It found many may suffer ‘ very high levels of financial loss, severe emotional strain, including suffering from anxiety or depression’ or ‘relationship difficulties as a result of their being defrauded’.

There were 383,132 fraud reports in the UK between April 30 last year and May 31 this year, resulting in losses of £2.9 billion, according to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. But experts have warned the cost of living squeeze is fuelling a new ‘ wave of scams’, with the amount stolen more than tripling as the financial crunch begins to bite.

‘Emotional trauma’