Bank fraud cases double as victims lose £1m every day
THE number of fraud victims tricked into handing over life-changing sums to criminals has doubled in a year.
Britain faces an ‘authorised’ fraud epidemic, with customers conned into transferring huge amounts of money out of their accounts.
This week, a Mail investigation revealed crooks working from an office in India pose as tax officials to target up to 10,000 Britons a day. Victims are told they have an outstanding tax bill and face arrest if they don’t pay up.
In other cases, fraudsters pose as legitimate companies or organisations such as the victim’s bank, telecoms provider, solicitor – or even the police.
Banks recorded 84,624 cases of socalled authorised push payment fraud last year, almost double the number reported in 2017, according to figures from banking trade body UK Finance. In total, victims lost £354.3million – £1million a day – a 50 per cent increase on 2017.
Consumer groups described the soaring numbers as ‘alarming’ and warned the country’s grip on fraud is ‘spiralling out of control’. They said the true number of victims and losses was likely to be even higher as many people are too ashamed to come forward.
For years, banks have refused to refund customers when they fall victim to this type of fraud, claiming the victim ‘authorised the transaction’. Of the £354.3million stolen by fraudsters last year, only £83million was repaid to victims, according to the UK Finance figures. around a quarter of the total – some £92.7million – was a result of impersonation fraud, where crooks pose as people victims trust such as their bank.
Often the crooks claim they are a victim of fraud and must transfer their savings into a supposed ‘safe account’. In reality, the account belongs to criminals and as soon as the money has been transferred victims almost never see it again.
another common scam – known as a ‘malicious payee’ – involves fraudsters posing as online sellers who trick shoppers into paying for fake goods.
There were 52,621 reports of this type of fraud last year, with victims losing £46.4million.
In other cases, victims have been persuaded to make payments to someone they met through a dating website – known as romance scams.
Martyn James of complaints website Resolver said: ‘The sheer scale of the figures suggests the activity of scammers is spiralling out of control. as soon as one scam is shut down, another will take its place.’
In a victory for Money Mail’s stop the Bank scammers campaign, victims of authorised fraud are to be refunded from May 28 – even if the bank is not at fault.
altogether, fraudsters stole £1.2billion last year, according to UK Finance. On top of the £354million lost to authorised fraud, a further £845million was lost to unauthorised fraud – where criminals, for instance, steal your card or use your bank details to shop online.