Ask for ID to stop text scammers buying phones, police chief says
HIGH street stores must be barred from allowing text scammers to buy phones and SIM cards without proof of ID, the new police watchdog has said.
Andy Cooke, the new HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary, told The Daily Telegraph the failure to crackdown on “burner” phones and SIM cards that can be freely bought without ID was fuelling “serious criminality”.
He said the registration of a person’s ID for the purchase of a mobile phone or SIM card should be a legal requirement, to help police curb fraud and combat county lines drug gangs who use the phones to run illegal businesses.
The former Chief Constable of Merseyside Police said: “You should not be able to have a ‘burner’ phone. There should be proper records in relation to purchases of phones and who has that phone number.”
As many as 36 million people receive text scams on their phones every month, with an estimated 6.5 million of those getting more than 10 a month, according to polling data.
Text scams have almost doubled since 2019, from 20,109 to 39,364, with losses up from £134 million to £150.3million. Many such scams claim to be from trusted organisations like the NHS, Royal Mail or high street banks.
Criminals often use prepaid SIM cards bought from phone shops or internet auction sites for as little as £10 each. Each plastic card can register a new mobile number on a phone network. Scammers can plug the cards into a Chinese-made piece of equipment called a “SIM farm” and anonymously send thousands of messages an hour to numbers bought or stolen online.
Official figures have shown how police solve one in 1,000 frauds, despite a 32 per cent rise in the number of victims to the crime in a year.
Mr Cooke said: “We need to better understand how we can combat fraud both through investigative and preventative methods. We can’t continue to allow fraud to rise and rise.”
He added that social media sites should require ID before allowing a person to open an account. This would help police chiefs trace offenders who engaged in child abuse or trolled users.