Over the summer, we got the latest stats on fraud: a 31% increase, to the highest estimated number of incidents since it was first included in the Crime Survey eight years ago.
Fraud has also particularly been in my mind this week as a member of my extended family was victim to one of those email hacking scams. I know there have been a spate of these scams affecting local residents in the last fortnight too.
There are still plenty of postal, phone and in-person frauds, but the big focus of the fraudsters these days is online. That also helps explain why, although the stereotype is of an elderly victim, fraud can happen to anyone; many victims are in their 20s and 30s.
It can also happen anywhere – the fraudster may be hundreds, even thousands of miles away. It is estimated that three quarters of UK frauds have an international element to them, and a quarter have no UK perpetrator at all.
A recent all-party group report said there is an “epidemic” in Authorised Push Payment fraud epidemic. You may well ask: what is that?
APP fraud is where the criminal tricks you into making a payment to them yourself. So it’s different from the sort of fraud where a criminal uses stolen card details without further action from the victim.
The previous government did make some progress. In the Fraud Plan that I worked on at the Home Office, we had a focus on seeking to tackle fraud at source, for example taking action on SIM farms (used to send thousands of text messages at once) and putting anti-fraud measures into the Online Safety Act.
The banking sector also did a lot. Initiatives like ‘strong customer authentication’ on banking apps and ‘confirmation of payee’ checks during transfers have added extra layers of security.
One important change was what I called ‘slower faster payments’. We benefit in Britain these days from much faster payments than a generation ago – often they are near instantaneous. That is great, but there are times when fraudsters take advantage. New regulations allow banks on occasion to slow it down somewhat if there is cause for suspicion.
Progress was made, and it was encouraging to see fraud fall in 2023 and then more substantially in 2024. It is deeply disappointing to now see it on the rise again, and this shows much more needs to be done.
But there are also things we can all do. If people forward on suspicious communications they’ve spotted, that can help protect other people from being scammed: emails should go to [email protected], texts to 7726. See more on my website: https://www.damianhinds.com/campaigns/staying-safe-online.
Caution is a good policy. If something feels wrong, it probably is. If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is too. Act fast by contacting your bank immediately if you suspect you’ve sent money to a scammer, and report the incident to Action Fraud.
