Protecting adults from scams: top tips

A scam is a fraud. It’s an attempt to steal money or goods, usually through a scheme or ploy, and can involve intimidating and threatening behaviour.

There are a variety of different scams, ranging from the romance scam, to the pension scam, to the clairvoyant scam. Then there is the lottery scam and the doorstep scam. The list continues to grow.

In October 2023, National Trading Standards published research revealing that 73% of UK adults – or 40 million people – had been targeted by scams, with 35% (19 million) losing money as a result. But, it said, fewer than a third of victims (32%) report the crime to the authorities.

Scammers often target older and socially isolated people, who are made to feel unsafe and afraid.

The care and support statutory guidance to the Care Act 2014 is explicit in stating that scams targeting adults at risk are a form of financial abuse – which is where professionals come in.

Best practice tips

The goal of intervention should be to develop a protection plan and manage risks. Here are some key points to remember:

• Consider scams and mass marketing fraud as a form of financial abuse under the Care Act 2014 or Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. If the client has care and support needs and is unable to protect themselves from the scam because of those needs, then the local authority is under a duty to make safeguarding enquiries. This provides an excellent forum to start protection planning.
• Work in a multi-agency manner. Safeguarding enquiries should involve safeguarding board partners such as the police, trading standards, third sector advocates and care providers. The statutory guidance to the Care Act says local authorities should always report cases of scams to trading standards and the police. A safeguarding planning meeting or case conference provides a useful arena for positive information sharing and protection planning.
• Act quickly. Scammers and fraudsters will often intensify the frequency and level of their fraud when they hear about professional involvement. Recognise that scammers will either find out about your involvement or sense that things have changed in terms of their access to the victim or the victim’s willingness to co-operate.
• Where you have proper reason to do so, consider the client’s mental capacity in relation to relevant decisions to do with the scam, including around accepting help. Ensure you provide all practicable support to the person to enable them to make decisions before concluding that they cannot. If a capacity assessment is required, then ensure that you have sufficient knowledge of the client’s background (in relation to how they have historically managed their finances) in order to help form a baseline against which to assess how they are managing now.
• Scams are crimes (normally falling under the Fraud Act 2006) and should be reported to trading standards, which may carry out a criminal investigation.
• Risk assess and protection plan: ensure that a comprehensive risk assessment is done, ideally one that involves the client and their wishes and outcomes. The resulting actions form the protection plan, which should be multi-agency in nature.
• Work in a manner that upholds the principle of making safeguarding personal (as explained in the Care Act statutory guidance). Communicate with the client and involve them in safeguarding, risk assessments and meetings.
• Keep checking on their desired outcomes as these may change as the safeguarding process moves forward. Remember the concept of slow burn social work as you will often be undoing years of relationship building between the scammer and the client. This will not happen overnight. Your relationship with the client will likely be the most important tool that you bring to the safeguarding plan.

The importance of multi-agency working

Dealing with complex fraud is not easy and is often protracted and complicated.

It is important that working to protect people from scams is not kept within trading standards and social work.

Consider all professionals who go across the threshold when engaging with clients, including police officers, such as those from local neighbourhood teams) domiciliary care workers, pendant alarm response officers, financial assessment officers, housing repair staff, third sector workers, tenancy officers and those working for meals on wheels type services.

All can be the eyes and ears for safeguarding and trading standards intervention to begin.

If you have a Community Care Inform Adults licence, log in to access the full guide. There, you can read more on the risk factors that make someone more likely to fall victim to scams as well as on the impact on people’s health, wellbeing and quality of life.