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A police boss is calling on the banks to pay for a dedicated officer in North Wales to combat the rising tide of fraud crimes at time when they are closing branches across the region.
Either that or they should help fund extra staff at the region’s Victim Help Centre that provides vital support to people who have been swindled out of their money by cruel fraudsters.
That’s the message from North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones who says the banks have a duty to do more to help when bank customers very often now have to travel long distances for face-to-face meetings because their local branches have been axed.
Mr Jones was speaking during a visit to the help centre in St Asaph which is dealing with a record number of calls from victims of all sorts of crime.
Last year the centre in St Asaph dealt with 34,000 cases, more than any other centre in Wales.
The problem of fraud was highlighted recently by the case of an elderly man in his 70s who was devastated after being tricked out of nearly £300,000 of his life-savings.
In this instance the scammers persuaded the victim over a series of calls he was at risk of losing his life-savings because a dishonest bank employee was stealing from his bank account.
The only way of safe-guarding his money, they said, was to temporarily transfer his savings into another “safe account” which was anything but.
It’s an all too familiar story to Sioned Jacobson, the operations manager at the Victim Help Centre.
She said: “The workload is definitely increasing. We get between around 80 and 120 cases a day directly from the police, and then on top of that there are self-referrals, any other referrals from any other agencies, or from any other areas from across the UK, they can transfer them to us if the victim lives in North Wales.
As well as our team here in St Asaph, we have a pool of 35 volunteers across North Wales who can offer that emotional support to victims, helping them with what’s happened, helping them develop coping strategies as well at things like practical support.
A lot of the cases we’ve been getting recently are ones where someone has been hacking into their computer, and they’ve asked to put their password and bank details in, and then the offender has got their bank details and has taken quite a bit of money from them.
There have been quite a few nasty fraud cases where the victims have had quite a bit of money stolen, one of them between £250,000 and £300,000.
It’s not necessarily about the amount of money that’s been stolen, it’s about how it’s the victim has been affected.”
According to Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones, the Victim Help Centre provided an excellent service.
He said: “In terms of volume this is the best performing centre in the whole of Wales and I am very proud we are providing a gold service to the people of North Wales.
It’s fair to say we are at the forefront of victim support but the demands are increasing, and the more people know about the service, the more pressure it will put on us so we need to continue review the level of resources we have in there to cope with the growing demand.
The increase in the number of fraud cases is a particular worry because these swindlers are exploiting vulnerable people, not just in North Wales. It’s a massive problem across the UK.
The key factor is the vulnerability of the victim, irrespective of what the crime is and I would like to do more around the vulnerable victims of fraud.
Vulnerable people, very often elderly, are being targeted specifically and that is despicable.
We have had examples in the past of vulnerable people essentially being groomed over a series of telephone calls and then having money taken from them and loans taken out in their names.
It’s the worst kind of crime because the victims have worked hard all their lives and saved all their money only to see it disappear after sometimes a couple of phone calls.
If it sounds too good to be true it probably is and that’s the message that needs to go out.
I know that banks already do help in certain areas and they have a good relationship with Action Fraud in the City of London but if we’re going to get to grips with fraud, the banks need to be doing more to help.
I’d like to see the banks provides some social value in North Wales by funding a dedicated police officer to fight fraud or staff in the Victim Help Centre.
I’m not asking one particular bank, I think they should come together to help because they have a lot of customers in North Wales and they are making a lot of money out of people in North Wales.
It’s about time returned something to the community, especially at a time when they are closing branches down.
A lot of people are not comfortable about banking online and rightly so because we keep seeing examples of hackers breaking down what should be secure systems.
There are great swathes of rural North Wales where you have to travel miles and miles to do any banking.
If you’re the victim of fraud and you want to go and speak to somebody face-to-face in the bank then in many areas it’s nigh on impossible to do so.
If you’re older, less mobile and don’t have access to transport, you just can’t do it.
Under the circumstances, the banks could and should be doing more to help the victims of crime. It’s the least they can do.”