Staff who work in our branches or call centres are in an ideal position to help our customers, as they’re often able to spot any strange account activity or identify unusual spending behaviours. Our Community Protection initiative in Scotland has created new systems so that frontline staff can quickly raise any concerns with our specially trained Community Protection Advisors, who then liaise with outside agencies to work together to protect customers.
We estimate that these actions have prevented our customers from losing over £2m through fraud such as doorstep crime, mail scams and telephone fraud, as well as sparing them the distress fraud causes.
The scheme is now being extended to the rest of the UK so that all our staff will have a regionally based Community Protection Adviser to refer cases to.
We have also taken action to stop known scams, leading the industry on issues like pay day brokers’ fees - blocking over £1 million hidden fee payments – and free trials fraud.
