• About the FSA
  • What we do
    • Fighting financial crime
      • Fraud
        • Key issues
          • Information for victims of fraud

If you are unfortunate enough to be a victim of fraud, you should report it to your local police force. Or if you would prefer to make an anonymous report you can call the Crimestoppers freephone number - 0800 555 111.

We are not a law enforcement agency and cannot investigate acts of fraud. However, if the fraud concerns an FSA authorised firm then you should tell us by contacting our Consumer Helpline:

Mortgage fraud

In the current market conditions we know that more people are finding it difficult to meet their repayments. If you do get into difficulty our rules require lenders to be flexible, to make sure they understand your individual circumstances and only use court action as a last resort. If you’ve been urged to lie on your mortgage application by a mortgage broker, you should report this to us, to the mortgage lender or to the police. You should be aware that you may not be eligible for any compensation if you knowingly lied on your mortgage application.

Identity Theft

Identity (ID) theft is a growing problem in the UK. The economic and social cost of identity fraud is into billions of pounds and growing – the most recent estimate from the Home Office is that ID fraud costs the UK economy £1.7 billion a year. According to CIFAS (the UK's fraud prevention service), identity theft has risen over eight-fold from 9.000 cases in 1999 to 77,500 in 2007.

We work alongside the Home Office, in collaboration with other government departments and private sector organisations, in the Home Office Identity Fraud Steering Committee. In this Committee, the Home Office leads a cross-public/private sector work programme to tackle identity theft and identity fraud. The programme coordinates existing activity in the public and private sectors and identifies new projects and initiatives to reduce identity theft.

You can find more information on the Committee, and recent successes it has achieved on the Home Office Identity Fraud Steering Committee website.

Scams & swindles

The FSA's consumer website, Moneymadeclear has a "scams & swindles" section in which we give a background, and ways to avoid various types of fraud:

• Online fraud
• Identity fraud
• Affinity fraud

Scams

Boiler room work

The FSA recently gave consumers a warning about the dangers of the phenomenon of "boiler room" scams. A 'boiler room' is a business located outside the UK, which sells worthless shares to unsuspecting investors. These scams target anyone and sound very believable. You can find more information on our consumer website, Moneymadeclear.

 

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