A TOP police official is calling for anyone who has had a bad experience with Action Fraud to contact him after a damning investigation into the organisation.

Police and crime commissioner Martyn Underhill said he is 'incredibly distressed' by the undercover investigation by The Times, which found evidence that call handlers were trained to mislead victims of fraud into believing cases would be investigated.

The reporter found most cases were never looked at again.

Mr Underhill said: "Worse, some managers were reported to have privately mocked people who lost money to fraudsters, calling them ‘morons’ and ‘screwballs’.

"This was incredibly distressing, both to me, and to the many dedicated officers and staff in Dorset Police who work hard to combat this ever-growing problem.

"However, it is far from the first complaint I’ve heard about them.

"As the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners' former lead for fraud, I listened to many heartbreaking stories from people who had lost tens of thousands of pounds – their life savings – only to feel ignored by Action Fraud, while officers working in this area expressed their own frustrations.

"Clearly, there’s something going badly wrong in the running of this organisation, and to my mind there has been for a long time."

Mr Underhill said he plans to lobby the government for "urgent improvements", but needs help from residents.

"I’ve created a survey to find out about Dorset residents’ experiences of Action Fraud, including whether they were satisfied with the outcome and the service they received," he said.

"If not, I want them to tell me what went wrong and what could have been done better.

"This will give me a dossier of evidence I can take to ministers calling for improvements, rather than relying on anecdotal accounts.

It’s vitally important we get this right.

"Nationally, fraud is a problem of epidemic proportions, accounting for more than a third of all crime across England and Wales last year.

"The service itself is overseen by the City Of London Police, but most of the call handling is outsourced to a private company called Concentrix.

"They conducted their own investigation following The Times’ report, and some staff members were suspended, but serious questions need to be asked about them – including whether an American company should even have been involved in this work at all.

"Ultimately, like many aspects of policing, it comes down to funding. With fraud being such a huge and rapidly growing area, should the Home Office be putting more resources into the national response and keeping a closer eye on how it’s managed?"

Responding to the survey will not create a crime report, and residents should still go to the police as usual if they have been a victim of a fraud.

For information, or to take part, visit surveymonkey.co.uk/r/5ZTM6RL