Young lose three times as much as their parents to online scams

Millennials more prone to being duped by pleas for money from fraudsters posing as Facebook friends

YOUNG people are losing three times as much money to online scams as their parents’ generation because they are more easily tricked by “family and friends fraud”, a study has found.

A survey of fraud victims by Get Safe Online found that under-25s typically lose £613 per scam, compared with people over the age of 55, who hand over £214 on average.

This is because they are more likely to fall for so-called “phishing” scams where criminals hack into people’s social media accounts and purport to be them to persuade their friends and family to transfer money to them.

Scammers lure in victims by tricking them into believing that their loved ones are in dire financial trouble, or that they are seriously ill abroad and need money for treatment.

More than 10 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds have fallen victim to this type of scam, compared with just five per cent of those aged 50 and over, according to Get Safe Online.

But older victims were more likely to fall for scams in which criminals purported to be a company with a household name, it found.

Overall, half of all Britons have been targeted, with eight per cent of the UK population falling victim to the cybercriminals, but millennials are now more likely than pensioners to be targeted by fraudsters for the first time.

In August, analysis of millions of credit files by Experian, a credit checking firm, found people in their late 20s superseded over-60s as the more likely age group to fall victim to fraud.

It comes after many years of elderly people being seen as the most gullible and therefore most targeted.

Tony Neate, the chief executive of Get Safe Online: “Younger people have grown up with smartphones and tablets, as well as social media, which means they are always online in some way or another. Naturally, that means there are much more opportunities for scammers to target them.

“Secondly, young people are so comfortable with technology and using new devices or platforms.

“On the one hand this is great, the UK needs a digitally savvy population, but on the other hand it can make younger people more complacent to risk – they just don’t believe that they could be caught out by a cyber crime. The assumption is that it’s only older people who are the only victims of online scams.

“Lastly, there is also an outdated idea that a scam email isn’t targeted or sophisticated.

“For example, the ones that come from rich kings who have been forced into hiding and want to use our bank accounts to hide their millions in, with a handsome fee offered as a thank you – although these types of emails are still doing the rounds, cyber criminals have become way more sophisticated in their approach.”