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Rooting out fraud with ‘Protect Your Patch’

Many people take pride in their gardens, and a lot of care, hard work and research goes into ensuring they’re well taken care of. This is the sort of care and consideration we want everyone to put into protecting themselves against fraud.

With over 94% of those aged 65+ having a garden or green space, and many seeking solace and community in them, we used Britain’s interest in gardening to draw parallels with fraud prevention; encouraging people to ‘Protect Your Patch’.

We launched our ‘Protect Your Patch’ campaign peak on Monday 11th August during National Allotments Week. In partnership with the National Allotment Society, we wanted to help educate people by using gardening inspired activity to bring fraud prevention to life.

Whether battling garden pests or protecting yourself from fraudsters, we’re encouraging people to remember the importance of: taking your time to think things through, doing research and understanding your environment, and leaning on your community for support and a second opinion.

Our ‘Protect Your Patch’ highlights:

  • Published articles in the National Allotment Society newsletters and magazines, attended their Annual General meeting in June.
  • Held a fraud webinar for National Allotment Society members.
  • Visited an allotment in Kent where we hosted a broadcast day brought along our ‘Protect Your Patch’ packs for their allotment open day.
  • Launched a range of paid and organic social media content and saw support on social media from members and stakeholders.
  • Published a press release and worked with well-known gardener and presenter Rachel De Thame as a spokesperson on our release.

Rachel De Thame, BBC Gardeners’ World presenter, said:

“We can’t bury our head in the soil when it comes to being educated and informed about the latest tricks that fraudsters will try and use to commit crimes against us. I’d like to encourage everyone to apply the same level of care and attention to protecting their finances and savings, as they would to nurturing their allotments. Fraudsters are an invasive species, which have no place infiltrating our finances. So, let’s stay informed about what we need to do to keep them out of our carefully nurtured and highly prized patches.”