In mid-2024, the UK government completed a phase-one evaluation of Stop! Think Fraud, a flagship cross-government communications campaign intended to support the fraud strategy’s goal of a sustained 10% reduction in fraud. By public-sector communications standards, the campaign performed unusually well: Reach was near-universal, recall was high, behavioral effects were measurable, and public confidence in the government's handling of fraud increased.
When measured against its strategic objective, however, the campaign is unlikely to have achieved its goal. This is not due to poor design or execution. In fact, Stop! Think Fraud is among the most sophisticated behavioral communications interventions the UK has implemented in crime prevention.
The failure stems from subsequent governmental inaction. The transition from a Conservative-led government, which launched the fraud strategy, to a Labor government created a strategic gap at a critical time when the campaign needed continuity, reinforcement, and escalation. Because of behavioral decay, evolving tactics of fraudsters, and persistent structural enablers, reducing fraud by 10% will require a more radical approach.
The government made a strong start on this important program but failed to follow through at the final stage. This article analyzes what went wrong and offers ideas to rectify the problem.
Stop! Think Fraud in a historical context
To understand the strengths and limitations of Stop! Think Fraud, let’s compare it with previous UK crime-prevention campaigns.
- Drunk driving: Communications plus constraint
UK drunk driving campaigns, which began in the 1970s, are often considered a benchmark for behavioral change. However, their success is frequently misunderstood. Initial messaging increased awareness and moral significance, but lasting reductions in fatalities only occurred when communications were combined with structural interventions such as legal blood alcohol limits, random breath testing, and credible enforcement.
Messaging about fraud prepared the public psychologically, while enforcement altered the cost-benefit calculation. Without enforcement, behavioral change plateaued.
Stop! Think Fraud mirrors the early phase of the drunk driving policy by featuring high-visibility messaging, clear behavioral cues, and strong normative framing. However, it lacks a structural constraint comparable to the breathalyzer, which would make unsafe behavior difficult, rather than merely discouraging it. - Counter-terrorism: Limiting individual burden
Counter-terrorism campaigns such as Run, Hide, Tell provide another relevant comparison. These campaigns use simple, consistently repeated heuristics that do not imply that citizens can prevent terrorism on their own. Instead, they assign the public a specific, limited role: Notice, report, and survive.
Prevention clearly remains the responsibility of the state.
Stop! Think Fraud adopts this model’s simplicity and memorability. However, fraud differs from terrorism in a key way: The fraud victim is also the point of execution. Unlike terrorism, fraud only succeeds when an individual actively complies. As a result, the campaign places a greater cognitive and moral burden on citizens, requiring them to not only observe but also out-think adaptive, professional criminals. - Burglary and vehicle crime: The immobilizer lesson
A particularly relevant comparison is with burglary and vehicle crime in the late 20th century. Public advice campaigns such as “lock it or lose it” were widespread, but crime rates declined significantly only after default security measures changed. Vehicle immobilizers, central locking, and product standards made theft more difficult than ever before.
Structurally, fraud prevention today remains at a pre-immobilizer stage. Payments are rapid, identities can be spoofed, and risk signals are shared inconsistently. In this context, Stop! Think Fraud serves only as a mitigating measure, not a decisive solution.
What the campaign achieved
The Phase 1 evaluation shows that the campaign achieved its stated objectives.
- Reach and recall were exceptionally high, with 96% exposure and 65% prompted recall.
- Behavioral experiments showed a 27% immediate reduction in scam victimization among those exposed, with an 8% reduction still evident six weeks later.
- Attitudinal shifts were strong: Recognizers were more likely to perceive fraud as personally relevant and to report stopping and thinking when faced with suspicious communications.
- Institutional confidence improved, with a majority of recognizers reporting greater confidence in the government's handling of fraud.
These are significant achievements. Few mass communications campaigns demonstrate measurable behavioral effects, especially in adversarial contexts.
However, the same evaluation also highlights the campaign’s main vulnerability: decay.
The problem of decay
Behavioral decay is not a flaw of the campaign but a predictable aspect of human cognition. The evaluation indicates that without repeated exposure, the protective effect of Stop! Think Fraud declines significantly within weeks. This aligns with decades of behavioral science, which shows that heuristics fade, habits erode, and time pressure returns.
Fraudst, meanwhile, remains consistent. Fraudsters adapt and innovate.
This creates a structural imbalance. To sustain its impact, the campaign would require population-wide exposure approximately every four weeks. Maintaining this level of intensity is challenging politically, financially, and institutionally, especially during a change of government.
The transition problem: From Conservative launch to Labor inheritance
The Conservative government that launched Stop! Think Fraud embedded it within a broader fraud strategy, explicitly positioning communications as one pillar among many. The campaign’s evaluation was published in June 2024, just weeks before the general election.
The incoming Labor government inherited both the strategy and its metrics, including the 10% reduction target, but not the political ownership of the campaign’s narrative. As is common during transitions, this has resulted in a pause for reassessment, rebranding considerations, and competing priorities.
From a policy perspective, this pause is costly. Communications-led interventions require continuity, and behavioral decay occurs regardless of ministerial approval. The campaign required a second phase that would have escalated efforts rather than simply extending them, including more targeted messaging, deeper integration with systemic controls, and a clear shift of responsibility upstream. Without that escalation, momentum was lost at the critical moment when reinforcement was urgently needed.
Is a 10% reduction still realistic?
Given the evidence, a sustained 10% reduction in fraud incidents is unlikely under current conditions.
This is not due to campaign failure, but because the remaining gap cannot be closed solely through awareness and vigilance. There are four reasons for this:
- Fraud is adaptive.
Unlike drunk driving or burglary, fraud tactics mutate rapidly. Static heuristics lose effectiveness in adversarial environments. - Risk is unevenly distributed.
Fraud harm is concentrated among repeat victims, vulnerable groups, and frequent digital users. Mass messaging has less impact where it is most needed. - Measurement lags reality.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales captures incidents and not prevented attempts. Headline figures may not accurately reflect real harm reduction. - Structural enablers persist.
Fast payments, fragmented liability, and inconsistent sharing of scam signals remain largely intact.
In summary, Stop! Think Fraud can influence trends but is incapable of achieving the full 10% reduction target on its own.
What a realistic next phase requires
Historical precedent suggests that sustained reductions only occur when communications and systemic change are closely linked.
To make the 10% target credible, a Labor-led fraud strategy would need to execute a more comprehensive and radical approach:
- Permanent, not campaign-based, communications
Fraud prevention communications must be continuous — similar to public health messaging — rather than episodic. - Default safety by design
Payment friction, recipient verification, and real-time risk prompts must be mandatory, not optional. - Upstream accountability
Platforms, telecommunications providers, and financial institutions must assume greater responsibility for prevention, reducing reliance on citizen vigilance. - A reframed public role
Citizens must be encouraged to notice fraud and pause. They cannot be expected to outsmart professional criminals.
Without these changes, even well-designed communications will at best produce short-term effects that diminish before leading to population-level change.
Stop! Think Fraud is a strong initial step in the UK’s efforts to combat fraud. It demonstrates how well-designed communications can change behavior, at least temporarily, and that the public responds to clear, simple guidance.
However, history shows that communications alone do not achieve sustained crime reduction. They merely lay the foundation for more robust interventions.
The main barrier to success for the fraud strategy was not creative, analytical, or behavioral, but political and related to timing. The transition from the Conservative to the Labor government disrupted momentum at a critical moment when continuity and escalation were vital.
Unless the next iteration of the UK government’s fraud strategy is significantly more radical, sustained, and structural, decay will continue to erode progress, and the 10% reduction target will remain aspirational and not achievable.
