Report fraud: A new front door for UK cyber crime and fraud reporting

On 4 December 2025, City of London Police quietly switched on Report Fraud, a new national service for reporting cyber crime and fraud. The launch – flagged to stakeholders by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) – marks the long-trailed replacement of Action Fraud as the UK’s central reporting platform.

It also closes a difficult chapter. Action Fraud had become synonymous with frustration, with a 2022 Justice Committee report describing it as ineffective, unfit for purpose and a “black hole” for victim reports. Victims of fraud and other related criminality are frequently left uncertain about how far their report has been taken, what stage any investigation has reached and what – if anything – they can do to move matters forward themselves, including through civil or regulatory routes.

In 2021 the government announced that the system would be scrapped and rebuilt. The arrival of Report Fraud at the very end of 2025, after several years of design and procurement, comes against a backdrop of rising fraud levels and a broader reset of the UK’s economic crime infrastructure.

A new national reporting gateway

The new service has three main components, but the front door now looks and feels different. At its core is a Report Fraud Contact Centre and online reporting tool, which continues to operate as the single national gateway for members of the public to report fraud and cyber crime, either via reportfraud.police.uk or by phone on 0300 123 2040. As with Action Fraud, reports can be made at any time of day or night and users receive a crime reference number and updates by email or post.

The most visible change is the way the online journey is framed. The legacy Action Fraud site was report-first and relatively news-heavy. By contrast, Report Fraud is more clearly victim-facing, with options such as “Protect yourself” and “Get help and support” placed prominently on the home page. The navigation and menu structure are otherwise very similar – essentially a relabelled version of the old site with comparable branding – but the emphasis is now on what has happened rather than who the user is.

That is reflected in the initial reporting pathway. Action Fraud asked users to categorise themselves as a victim, someone reporting on behalf of a victim, a business or a witness. Report Fraud instead invites users to report by type of incident – for example, reporting something suspicious, or reporting a cyber crime or fraud. The triage questions then guide users through a structured set of prompts to identify the type of fraud and capture relevant details, including signposting to other agencies (such as HMRC or local police) where the matter is outside the service’s scope.

Behind the scenes, the National Crime Analysis Service (N-CAS) replaces Action Fraud’s back-end system for analysing reports and sharing data with local forces. The description of what happens to a report is almost word-for-word identical to the old service, save that cases are now expressly said to be passed to Report Fraud Analysis Services, overseen by City of London Police, which assesses the information and disseminates intelligence. The core proposition therefore remains the same – a 24/7 reporting tool that issues a crime reference number and feeds a central analysis hub – but with clearer signposting, more explicit victim support and some modernisation of the analytical engine.

Taken together, Report Fraud presents as more of a carefully rebranded successor to Action Fraud than a visibly radical overhaul. The test will be whether the new technology and analysis capabilities translate into better outcomes on the ground.

City of London Police as fraud frontrunner

The SFO press notice is explicit that Report Fraud is “a new service from City of London Police”, reinforcing the force’s role as national lead for fraud. This sits alongside the government’s new Anti-Corruption Strategy, which envisages an expanded domestic corruption unit within City of London Police and a stronger national co-ordination role in the fight against fraud and corruption.

Together, these developments signal a deliberate policy choice: to anchor the UK’s front-end fraud response in a specialist police force with national reach, rather than a more diffuse multi-agency model. In parallel, the SFO and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are being positioned as downstream prosecutors for the most serious and complex cases, with the SFO emphasising its desire to use new failure to prevent offences and other tools.

Overlaps and gaps with SFO reporting

The introduction of Report Fraud raises practical questions about how it interacts with the SFO’s own reporting mechanism.

The SFO’s messaging around the launch of Report Fraud draws a line between these channels. The agency has told stakeholders that victims of cyber crime and fraud should now use Report Fraud, while its own portal remains aimed at corporate entities and whistleblowers seeking to disclose serious or complex fraud, bribery or corruption. Its online “Make a report” tool is framed around serious or complex economic crime that warrants the SFO’s specialist skills and powers, and offers tailored pathways for corporates and whistleblowers with an explanation of how information will be assessed. In principle, that division of labour is clear: individuals and most businesses use the national gateway; corporates contemplating a self-report about their own misconduct go straight to the SFO.

In practice, some grey areas are likely. Corporate victims of substantial fraud, or with supply-chain corruption concerns may be uncertain whether to start with Report Fraud, their bank, or the SFO and advice may be needed. For financial services scams and cloned firms, the FCA’s ScamSmart tool also offers a route for reporting and checking warnings.

Will a new system increase confidence in reporting?

Report Fraud and N-CAS are intended not just to modernise reporting infrastructure but to repair confidence. The Economic Crime Survey 2024 shows that only around a third of businesses that experience fraud report it externally, and that just 6% contact law enforcement; many doubt that reporting will make any difference. Those perceptions were reinforced by stories of Action Fraud reports disappearing without feedback or visible outcomes.

A better-designed online tool, a more responsive contact centre and a sophisticated analysis service are important building blocks. But they will only shift behaviour if users see concrete results.

The launch of Report Fraud is therefore best seen as the start of a new phase rather than the end of the story. It reflects a broader policy move to put City of London Police at the centre of the UK’s fraud and corruption architecture, and to harness more modern technology in support of that role. Whether it succeeds will be measured less by the number of reports it receives and more by whether victims – individuals and corporates alike – feel that reporting no longer means sending information into a black hole, but into a system that demonstrably investigates and prosecutes fraud.

Authored by Olga Tocewicz, Reuben Vandercruyssen, and Alex Cumming.