A cold-call ban for all financial products is long overdue but much more needs to be done - Ros Altmann

Cold calling by claims management, mortgage and funeral plan firms is also banned, but at last the Government is consulting on banning unsolicited calls for all financial products.

This consultation follows measures earlier this year to expand fraud-prevention. Many fraudulent operators are based offshore, difficult to find, and even more difficult to enforce penalties on.

It is another step in the right direction but there’s plenty more to do to protect the public. A ban on cold-calling won’t stop all fraud and is just one of the measures that can improve protection against scams.

Equally important is clear messaging for the public that explains why they should not engage with anyone who calls them out of the blue about financial products.

There needs to be a publicity campaign which makes clear that an unsolicited call will be from someone acting illegally. This will help people realise they should be suspicious and should just hang up.

The Government also needs to streamline regulation and the reporting of fraud.

The current situation is too confusing.

Regulation of cold calls is currently plagued by overlapping rules from different bodies.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Ofgem, each have powers over certain aspects of cold-calling, for example FCA rules govern marketing and promotions of financial products, Ofgem can cancel phone numbers or require providers to block phone numbers that have been misused and ICO can fine firms which use people’s private data without consent.

But the current patchwork of regulations just confuses consumers. Indeed, when wanting to report a fraud, people do not know who to turn to.

They will have heard about the Financial Ombudsman services, Telephone Preference Service, Action Fraud, City of London Police, ScamSmart, FCA registers and more.

Older people are often more at risk of being targeted by a suckers’ lists and that could mean that they are targeted more frequently.

The impact of cold-calls is not evenly spread across the population, with a small number of people disproportionately affected – many being targeted at least once a day.

Older people are often specifically targeted because their generations tend to be more trusting and those who answer their landline or mobile to engage with cold-callers seem more likely to be on so-called ‘suckers’ lists’.

This means their data are passed to others, resulting in multiple calls after they are considered to be higher-likelihood targets.

Baroness Ros Altmann is a British life peer and former pensions minister. She served under David Cameron from 2015 to 2016.