Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Against Scams Partnership – Who We Are and How to Get Involved

Charlotte Homent, Lead for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Against Scams Partnership (CAPASP), explains what CAPASP is, who is involved and what you can do to help.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Against Scams Partnership (CAPASP) is a partnership of twenty organisations all working together to protect residents and businesses in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough from the financial and emotional harm of scams.

Sadly, attempts to trick people out of their money are all too common today. They can come by post, telephone, on the internet or at your door. Every year more than 3 million people fall victim to scams in the UK, losing £5-10 billion collectively. Added to this is the significant detriment to a victim’s health and wellbeing. In fact a person defrauded in their own home is, shockingly, two and a half times more likely to die or go into care within a year.

Our partners include county, city and district councils, Police, Fire Service, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, Neighbourhood Watch, Age UK, The Bobby Scheme, Safe Local Trades, Anglian Water, Cadent Gas, Peterborough Citizens Advice, Care Network and the Victim and Witness Hub.

Working across four themes

All partners have committed to a charter and work across four themes to keep people safe from scams. These themes are:

Communications – sharing information about scams and how to stay safe.
Prevention and Training Tools – helping people gain the skills and knowledge to take a stand against scams.
Reporting and Referral Pathways – ensuring that residents and businesses know where to report scams and that partners have clear pathways to refer to for additional help.
Supporting Victims – providing victims with practical and emotional support as appropriate. This includes increasing their confidence in spotting scams and stopping scams.

Become a partnership supporter

We have a very strong and successful partnership, of which I am very proud. But we recognise that communities are in the very best place – and are equipped with an abundance of knowledge, skills and assets – to make the greatest positive difference in terms of protecting their community from scams. Communities know their people and the local issues which matter to them better than our partnership ever could. We therefore invite communities and keen individuals to join us as partnership supporters in the fight against scams.

Indeed we invite readers of The Local View to join more than 100 supporters already registered with us. These include local councils, community groups, businesses, schools, housing associations and keen individuals.

It costs nothing to register as a supporter. All we ask is that supporters share scams awareness and prevention information as far and wide as possible within your community/networks, e.g. in newsletters, on noticeboards, on webpages and on social media. In return, we name supporters on our webpage and celebrate the great things supporters are doing in our newsletter.

We make it easy for supporters to get involved in building local resilience by sharing:

1) a monthly newsletter
2) interim scam alerts (to notify of topical scams happening in between newsletter issues)
3) social media content for easy re-sharing, retweeting, etc.
4) scams prevention articles for local newsletters and magazines
5) free scams prevention resources. For example, we have a library of self-serve resources, such as posters, leaflets and guidance documents on our webpage and can loan display boards, leaflet holders, etc.

Easy to make a difference

We also have an e-learning version of Friends Against Scams training at www.friendsagainstscams.org.uk/elearning/Cambridgeshire and a number of SCAMchampions who can deliver live Friends Against Scams sessions to groups. Why not complete the learning and become a Friend today? And encourage others to do so too. The learning equips those completing it with the knowledge and skills to ‘take a stand against scams’.