Ben Donaldson OBE
Managing Director of Economic Crime, UK Finance
Fraud is the UK’s most prevalent crime, causing significant harm to innocent people and our economy. However, there are steps we can take to help prevent fraud.
Fraudsters lie and cheat to steal people’s hard-earned money. The emotional harm this causes to innocent people is also huge. The criminals who perpetrate these callous crimes then use the stolen money to fund other illegal activities, causing further harm to innocent people and wider society.
Invested in protecting people from fraud
Last year, our annual fraud report at UK Finance detailed losses of over £1.2 billion — that’s more than £2,300 stolen from innocent people every single minute of 2022.
The banking and finance industry spends billions of pounds each year to protect people from fraud. We fight it on numerous fronts, in close collaboration with partners in government, law enforcement and other sectors. This is having an impact, but we need everyone to do more, and we all need to work together.
Most fraudsters used social media to target, manipulate and exploit their victims.
Sources of fraud
A common and callous type of fraud is where a fraudster deceives their victim into transferring money to them — we call this Authorised Push Payment or ‘APP’ fraud. We can’t measure the emotional harm this causes; but we do know that, last year, at least £485.2 million was stolen this way.
We analysed over 59,000 cases of this type of fraud. Most fraudsters used social media to target, manipulate and exploit their victims. Overall, we found that 78% of all APP fraud cases originated online, with 18% of cases originating on telecommunications networks.
This demonstrates the need for these sectors to do more to tackle the problem they are facilitating. We, therefore, welcome the fact the Government’s new fraud strategy is shining a light on them and calling for greater action on their part.
How to defend yourself from fraud
The best thing is to prevent fraud from happening in the first place. For consumers, we recommend they follow the advice of our ‘Take Five to Stop Fraud’ campaign.
· Stop: Give yourself a moment to stop and think before making a transfer or handing over any personal information.
· Challenge: It is absolutely fine to say no, put the phone down, ignore messages or end the chat.
· Protect: If you think a criminal has defrauded you, contact your bank and report it to Action Fraud immediately. If all sectors and agencies fight fraud together, we can better protect people and the economy from these awful crimes.
If all sectors and agencies fight fraud together, we can better protect people and the economy from these awful crimes.