UK customers lose £580m to fraudsters in first half of 2023, new figures reveal

Scammers have been answerable for practically 1.4m instances of fraud within the UK in the course of the first half of 2023 – the equal of 1 each 12 seconds – with romance scams and ID theft among the many quickest rising classes.

General, criminals stole £580m within the first six months of the 12 months, in line with the banking commerce affiliation UK Finance, suggesting households are set to lose greater than £1bn to fraudsters throughout 2023.

UK Finance, which collates information on behalf of excessive avenue banks, stated it was significantly involved by the 29% soar in romance scams, by which individuals fake to fall in love with the victims after which ask for cash. It described them as “significantly nasty”, typically involving a number of funds.

About £18.5m was misplaced on this method in the course of the first half of the 12 months, largely by weak customers who invariably can in poor health afford the associated fee.

ID theft, the place criminals use their sufferer’s private data to both take over present accounts or to use for bank cards, noticed the most important improve – up greater than 50% to £33m for the six months.

Authorised push fee (APP) fraud instances, the place victims are duped into making on-line transfers, normally into fraudster-controlled accounts, have been up 22% to £240m in contrast with the identical interval final 12 months.

Regardless of the large rise in APP frauds, general the quantity misplaced by customers to fraudsters fell by 2% in contrast with final 12 months.

The variety of instances the place criminals impersonated a financial institution or the police and satisfied somebody to switch cash to a “secure account” fell by 35% because it seems the message that banks won’t ever ask somebody to switch cash on this method is lastly being heeded.

Ben Donaldson, the managing director of financial crime at UK Finance, stated criminals have been more and more utilizing social media, on-line platforms, texts, cellphone calls and emails to deceive victims.

“Within the first six months of this 12 months ruthless criminals had already stolen greater than half a billion kilos from victims via fraud.

“Along with the monetary losses, these crimes typically contain callous manipulation of the sufferer, which may trigger psychological and emotional hurt.

“The one method we are going to stop fraud is that if different sectors do rather more to assist us take care of the criminality which is more and more going down on their platforms.”

Liz Ziegler, the fraud prevention director at Lloyds Banking Group, echoed his view. “Removed from stemming the tide of fraud, the wave of social media scams impacting UK customers solely continues to develop.

“We all know from our personal analysis that greater than two-thirds of on-line purchasing scams begin on Fb. But it stays far too straightforward for criminals to arrange pretend profiles and promote objects that merely don’t exist, with no safe fee technique provided to patrons.

“It’s excessive time tech and social media firms additionally took accountability for safeguarding their very own prospects, stopping scams at supply and contributing to refunds when their platforms are used to defraud harmless victims.”