Lessons for Resilience
Consider how your organisation can prepare to address the financial concerns of communities and individuals
Many individuals and families have experienced negative economic impacts from COVID-19 as a result of business closures, job losses and reduced working hours. Globally, governments have introduced financial stimuli through small business loans and furlough schemes, in an effort to mitigate the consequences of financial losses caused by the pandemic. As many stimulus packages are scheduled to end in the coming months, business owners are concerned that they will be unable to continue to pay staff, and employees are concerned that they may be made redundant. Consider:
- The need to quickly increase the capacity of local financial support and advice systems:
- Partner with and commission community advice services, e.g. Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB)
- Build capacity and train volunteers to increase the range of specialist and generalist welfare and debt advice that is available
- Seek support from local businesses that can provide financial and other advice
- Increase community and business awareness of how to access support services:
- Run information campaigns targeted at groups that need support
- Bring together sources of good advice from trusted partners into a single location/source to make information easy to find
- Sign post and onward refer members of the community to services
- Integrate debt and financial advice and budgeting support with forms of direct financial support
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Ireland, Republic of
https://www.mabs.ie/en/how_we_help/
Consider advising consumers about purchasing safely online
During lockdown more consumers have been turning to online shopping. Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, received over 16,000 reports about online fraud during the lockdown totalling over £16m. Consumers report buying mobile phones (19%), vehicles (22%), and electronics (10%) on sites such as eBay (18%), Facebook (18%), and Gumtree (10%) only for the items to never arrive. Considering reinforcing to citizens:
- The prevalence of online fraud
- Actions to make online shopping safer e.g.
- choose a trusted retailers or build confidence in the retailer by researching other consumers’ experiences
- create accounts that have strong passwords that are not identical to email accounts
- be aware of scam email messages offering deals and don’t click on links that you are unsure about
- use a credit card to pay as it offers more payment protection
- What they should do if they think they have become a victim of online shopping fraud e.g.
- note the website’s address, close the browser, report to a consumer fraud advice service
- monitor bank transactions if payment details have been submitted to the site
- contact your bank about any unrecognised transactions, however small
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United Kingdom
https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/