Well, I guess this was inevitable. Having spent two decades making TV shows like The Real Hustle and many other series around scams and fraudsters focusing on consumer protection, I have ended up starting a Substack. Predictable much?
The truth is the space for consumer protection is narrowing. Broadcasters are increasingly weary of investing in consumer shows as the return on that investment is negligible at best. You cannot sell consumer shows around the world and Netflix are not going to come calling for them. The programs also go out of date fairly quickly so channels cannot keep repeating them to fill their schedule.
However, shows that educate the public on how to protect themselves from crime are needed now more than ever. Just look at the numbers. According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics there were 4.5 million incidents of fraud in the year ending March 2026. That number was 4.2 million in March 2025 and 3.2 million in the same month in 2024. So, we are going the wrong way. When it comes to the financial cost, the amounts are eye watering. The latest figures from the Home Office estimate the cost of fraud in year ending March 2024 were £14.4 billion — £9.2 billion affecting individuals and £5.2 billion affecting businesses. There’s your defence budget shortfall right there. I should add that when I see these figures I am always assuming that the true cost is much higher. There is so much fraud that goes unreported either because the amounts lost are low or people are too embarrassed to go public and just chalk it up to experience.
Whatever the real number is, having that much money handed over to scammers is frankly obscene and as a nation, we should be more pissed off about it, and our government should be doing a lot more about it. I have long been of the view that we need a minister for fraud. Wait. Turns out we have one. His name is Ian Steel.
Just kidding - but I bet I had you fooled though. Our actual minister for fraud is David Hanson, Lord Hanson of Flint, Ian Steel was my pseudonym on The Real Hustle because all my fake IDs read “Mr I Steel”. I know, pathetic but it made us giggle a little. The point I am trying to make about Lord Hanson is that the minister for fraud should be one of the most public and well known figures in the country. They should be spearheading public awareness campaigns and acting as the figure head for their ministry. They should be accountable if fraud goes up and praised if it goes down— just like the health secretary deals with waiting lists for the NHS. My point is Lord Hanson— and this is no criticism of his character— has fraud as one of his thirteen other responsibilities, including ‘departmental finance’, ‘overseas territories’ and ‘the Union and devolution’. This is bonkers. The country needs to take fraud seriously enough to appoint a dedicated minister whose sole job is to stop the country haemorrhaging money to fraudsters, scammers and serious organised crime who are running some very profitable scam compounds across the globe.
So, yes, I’m a little cross because I’ve spent enough time around victims of fraud. Their lives have been decimated, and they have very few places they can turn to. I’ve seen enough money handed over to scammers that ends up funding serious crime including drugs, people trafficking, and even terrorism and it feels like we’re losing the battle.
However, despite all that, I feel optimistic. For the last fifteen years I have been speaking to companies worldwide about scams and how they can avoid them. No matter how complex they get or how technologically advanced they appear, scams rely on one thing—us. Scammers are the hackers of human nature. The psychology behind every scam can be broken down and used as a red flag to recognise and avoid fraud. Feel rushed into making a decision? Found an offer that sounds too good to be true? Well, that’s two classic scam elements right there— time pressure and the ‘good deal syndrome’.
So, this is what this Substack will endeavour to do. Warn people about the latest scams, explain how and why they work, and give useful and practical advice to protect you from fraud. Along the way we’ll hear about some very clever criminals who really did turn scamming into an art—hence known as ‘con artists’ and we’ll also learn a trick or two, things conmen use all the time to their advantage that we can start using to ours.
I hope you’ll come along for the ride.