Cold calls which trick people into buying fake investments will be banned

Cold calls which trick people into buying fake investments will be banned under a strategy to be launched next week by Rishi Sunak.

He said the move was needed as ‘scammers devastate lives and livelihoods, preying on people’s fears to cheat them out of their money’.

The proposal will extend the current ban on cold calls about pensions to cover calls about selling any financial product.

The Prime Minister added: ‘We have to prevent fraudsters from infiltrating their way into people’s lives in the first place. That’s why we’re stopping scams at source by taking away the routes used to target victims, keeping people safe and shielding them from criminals.’

Mr Sunak said the move was needed as ‘scammers devastate lives and livelihoods, preying on people’s fears to cheat them out of their money’. [File image] 

Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who will launch the plans with Mr Sunak, said: ‘Fraudsters are the lowest of the low. They relentlessly search for new ways to trick people.

‘Banning cold calls and stopping fraudsters using technology is the start in our fightback against these cowards who hide in the shadows.’

The proposals will also ban so-called SIM farms, electronic boxes made up of bundles of SIM cards which send fraudulent messages simultaneously to thousands of people.

Fraud costs society an estimated £6.8billion a year. Up to 41million adults in the UK were targeted by suspicious calls and texts last summer, according to regulator Ofcom.