Criminals stole £610m from unsuspecting victims in the first half of this year – a fall from the pandemic peak – but Brits are urged to stay on guard to new and adapting scams.
Unauthorised fraud losses totalled £360.8m while authorised push payment (APP) fraud losses stood at £249.1m in the first half of 2022, according to UK Finance.
The banking trade body revealed this figure is down 13% on the same period in 2021, but stressed the drop was partially due to last year being an “exceptionally high period for fraud”, rather than the start of a downward trend.
It also revealed that the banking and finance industry prevented a further £583.9m of unauthorised fraud getting into the hands of criminals.
Fraud losses
Unauthorised fraud is where the account holder doesn’t give consent for the transaction which is carried out by a criminal, such as where a victim’s card details are used without their knowledge.
There were nearly 1.4 million instances of fraud via payment card, remote banking or cheque, though this number is down 7% and losses from last year are down 9%.
UK Finance said victims of unauthorised payment card fraud are legally protected against losses, and industry analysis found victims are refunded in over 98% of all confirmed cases.
Meanwhile authorised push payment (APP) fraud is where a customer is tricked into transferring money to a seemingly legitimate account but which is in fact controlled by a scammer.
This includes investment…
