**ACTION FRAUD bureaucracy gone mad**

codger

VENT: Am wondering if anyone on here has ever managed to report a crime to Action Fraud in view of the way this online reporting platform is so idiotically coded?

At lunchtime today our landline rang and Mrs C answered it. A recorded voice told her OFCOM was calling (as if) to let us know that our Internet would be disconnected within the next 24 hours (oh really?) because "hackers" had targeted the line (good God: how am-az-ing!)

What she should do now is dial 1 to be put through to technical services, British Telecom , who will help her out.

The caller's number, most likely spoofed, was 07326 891954.

She disconnected. And we're not daft enough to follow the "advice" given in any stranger's phone call to us. Nor not to know what OFCOM actually is: a regulatory, not investigatory agency. (As for a telephone line being hacked . . .? The mind boggles.)

I went online to Action Fraud to report that a scam was very obviously in progress. One would've thought Action Fraud might like to know.

I first spoke in online chat to someone called 'Jennifer'. I asked if it was worth me bothering to report this or was this so frequent an occurrence that my report wouldn't add anything much.

'Jennifer' said oh yes, please report it, and provided the actual link. She also suggested I "register" first, because that way I'd have a record of my report and be able to keep up with news of any developments.

After an hour, I gave up. The scam went unreported and thus Action Fraud has been left entirely untroubled by it today whilst some gullible victim, somewhere else in the UK, may well have lost out big-time.

Reason for not reporting the scam was because of the daft obstructive bureaucracy of the Action Fraud website. It required that I devise three different security questions, with answers, for use in the event that I ever forgot the password I'd just been required to think up for future use on the Action Fraud website as a 'registered' user..

But I couldn't proceed with registration because the answer to one of the questions I'd devised was unacceptable. The question I'd thought up was: 'What was the colour of your first car?' Answer 'red'.

The page refused to save or progress, and the reason wasn't all that clear, either. Finally it turned out that Action Fraud won't accept any answer to any security question unless it has at least 4 characters.



Why not? What's wrong with a 'red' coloured car?

I changed my answer to bright rhododendron pink. And that was OK. Eventually, I appeared to be registered -- name, age, address, ethnicity, data which I became increasingly hesitant about providing because it's pretty obvious that Action Fraud's IT is so useless it will lose all confidential personal data held on its files within the foreseeable future and deservedly have to stump up a fortune in ICO fines (all of it taxpers' money).

But I then reached the actual reporting stage, of reporting the attempted scam call. the phone call answered not by me, but my wife. And she is? Name, age, address, phone number. . . ye gods, on and on and on.

I provided the phone number but unfortunately, because it was inevitably the same one I'd already given, Action Fraud refused to go further. It clearly wanted a different number. Ideally, therefore, I should go off and invent one, just like I had to invent the rhododendron pink colour of my first car.

So yes, I've now given up on these idiots and on bothering to report an attempted scam that's probably underway right now elsewhere in the UK.

But yes, I am wondering if anyone else here has ever, at any time, actually managed to file an online report to Action Fraud. If so, please don't answer here in words of less than 4 characters.

jimbo6977

I've had a similar experience with Lancs Police's online reporting system.

It's almost as if they don't want you to report....

knightstyle

Yup reported crime is going down!!!!

Ectophile

Remember that the purpose of Action Fraud is not to take action on fraud. It is there to keep fraud victims away from the police, as the police simply don't have enough people to investigate every case of fraud.

DCFC79

Why not report the number on 1 of the many phone number spam reporting sites.

missile

Good for you attempting to report. Action Fraud and call preference service are worse than useless.

hollydays

I did live chat with action fraud and they gave me the wrong advice.
The organisation they told me to contact admitted it was nothing they could deal with.When I flagged this up with a supervisor, they wouldn't admit they were in the wrong, but it's what we already know I guess that action fraud are not fit for purpose.

keef-WhatStandards

I was fobbed off to this site by local Police: useless!

[Deleted User]

I had a similar problem with my crime not fitting any particular tick box when I tried to report it to local police's online reporting 'system'. Eventually I ticked any box and reported what the crim actually was once I hit the appropirate dialogue box.

I made it clear at all points that I was the only witness (the assault victim).

I was asked to report the crime at my local police station the next day, waited for a bus over an hour, freezing cold when I arrived. Gave my statement.

Had a call two days later to say that as I was the only witness they wouldn't take any action, even though i had taken a picture of the perpetrator. Note I had said all along and repeatedly there were no other witnesses. They just have known this would happen when they asked me to make a statement which was a total waste of time.