UK Finance’s latest Fraud the Facts report has revealed that criminals turned to online and technology-enabled scams to exploit people’s fears about the Covid-19 pandemic.
Impersonation scam cases, in which criminals impersonate trusted organisations to trick victims into handing over their money, almost doubled to 39,364 cases in 2020, the largest increase of all scam types. During the pandemic, criminals sent fraudulent emails claiming to offer government support to those impacted by the pandemic and scam text messages requesting payments to book a Covid-19 vaccine. They also impersonated delivery companies to exploit the rise in online shopping.
There was a 32 per cent increase in investment scam cases last year, which are often promoted through adverts on search engines offering higher than average returns, and a 38 per cent increase in cases of romance scams, driven by the rise in online dating during the pandemic.
Authorised Push Payment fraud
Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud cases, where customers are tricked into authorising a payment to another account controlled by a criminal, increased by 22 per cent to almost 150,000 in 2020. Losses amounted to a total of £479 million, up five per cent on the previous year.
- Investment scams, in which a criminal convinces their victim to move their money to a fictitious fund or to pay for a fake investment, saw the highest increase in losses of any APP scam type, totalling £135.1 million.
- Purchase scams, in which the victim pays in advance for goods or services that are never received, remained the most common form of APP fraud, accounting for 52 per cent of APP fraud cases