A new partnership between the National Trading Standards Scams Team and home care provider, Home Instead Senior Care, will place Home Instead’s 8,000 caregivers at the forefront of a new scambusting initiative.
A new partnership between the National Trading Standards Scams Team and home care provider, Home Instead Senior Care, will place Home Instead’s 8,000 caregivers at the forefront of a new scambusting initiative. This will see Home Instead’s caregivers trained to combat mass market scams and arms the company’s caregivers with the ability to report suspected fraud directly to the NTS Scams Team.
Home Instead, which was bestowed the Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2016 has been involved in a public education programme on mass marketing scams since 2013. The new public/private partnership will help the company’s caregivers and clients to identify and fight mass marketing scams which each year claim 3.2 million victims with £5 to £10 billion lost to scammers.
Working with the NTS Scams Team, Home Instead has created a new e-learning hub which allows Home Instead caregivers to undertake online scam awareness training. The training resource, which standardises and formalises the training delivered, educates caregivers on the different types of scam and the particular risk to the elderly. It also highlights the potential damage to a person’s health and welfare.
In addition, Home Instead has created a ‘Report a Fraud’ website which allows Home Instead’s teams across the country to report suspected fraudulent activity directly to the NTS Scams Team. This enables any suspected fraud to be investigated in a timely manner and will also help alert the NTS Scams Team to the types of fraud being perpetrated and where.
Speaking about the new partnership, Trevor Brocklebank, CEO of Home Instead said, “We are delighted to be working with National Trading Standards’ Scams Team to help disrupt mass marketing fraud perpetrated by faceless criminals who prey on the elderly.
“The amount of money lost to these criminals is quite shocking. The damage they inflict is not simply financial; it can have a devastating effect on an elderly person’s wellbeing.”
Home Instead has 170 offices across the country making them an ideal partner for National Trading Standards. Speaking about the new relationship, Louise Baxter, National Trading Standards Scams Team Manager, said, “We see Home Instead’s caregivers as an army of scambusters and are so pleased to have their support. They are our eyes and ears on the ground and I know they will make a significant impact on our efforts to reduce mass market scams.
“The e-learning initiative is going to arm more people with the information required to assist with the identification of scams and victims and the new ‘Report a Fraud’ website will help with the information flow of scam discovery and with the collation of statistics.”
For more information on Home Instead Senior Care’s scambusting initiative, visit www.homeinstead.co.uk/Protect_Seniors_from_Fraud.do
For more information about the National Trading Standards Scams Team visit www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/work-areas/scams-team
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Notes to Editors
About National Trading Standards
National Trading Standards delivers national and regional consumer protection enforcement. Its Board is made up of senior and experienced heads of local government trading standards from around England and Wales with an independent Chair. Its purpose is to protect consumers and safeguard legitimate businesses by tackling serious national and regional consumer protection issues and organised criminality and by providing a “safety net” to limit unsafe consumer goods entering the UK and protecting food supplies by ensuring the animal feed chain is safe.
National Trading Scams Team
The National Trading Standards Scams Team works in partnership with other agencies across the country to identify and support victims of mass marketing fraud.