With increasing internet fraud, the finance sector is getting affected more than ever with fake or clone websites selling fraudulent insurance policies. Donna Scully, director of Carpenters group – one of the UK’s leading insurance and legal services providers, discusses application fraud and why the insurance industry is stepping up to educate the consumers.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FDA) admits that they have no power over policing the web and can only ask Google to remove fraudulent adverts. Charles Randall, FCA chairman, recently stated that “whatever Google is doing, so far it’s not working.”
The customers being prey to this online fraud often don’t realize that they have been robbed until they try and make a claim. Due to the ease of creating a minor website and the cheap cost of paid search advertisements, the fraudsters can quickly make profits through deceit. The insurance industry is now pushing regulators hard to persuade Google and other search engines to improve their policies on fraud.
Google has said that it is introducing a more robust verification system for advertisers. The government may claim that it has given the FCA sufficient powers to hold internet companies to account, but the evidence doesn’t support this argument.
The major part of controlling online fraud is to be done by the government by implementing stricter rules and regulations. In the meantime, the insurance sector itself is coming up to educate the customers about the dangers hidden in many online sites.
