Financial fraud losses of £366.4m in the first half of 2017 were 8 per cent lower year-on-year, figures from UK Finance show. The data from the finance and banking trade association, covering payment cards, remote banking and cheques, also shows that the industry prevented over £750m of fraud during the same period, or 67 per cent of attempted fraud. This compares with £400.4m of losses and £678.7m of prevented fraud in the first half of 2016.
Fraudsters are increasingly trying to use customers’ compromised personal and financial information to carry out fraud. Details are primarily stolen through online attacks, such as data hacks and malware, as well as through impersonation scams directly targeting customers. For the data in full visit the UK Finance website.
Katy Worobec, Head of Fraud and Financial Crime Prevention, Cyber and Data Sharing at UK Finance, said: “Tackling fraud is a top priority for the entire industry. But financial fraud is not just an issue for the banking sector – its harmful effects stretch far and wide. This is why when it comes to prevention, protection or deterrents the industry is committed to taking a collaborative approach to curb these crimes and is launching the latest Take Five consumer campaign. Whether it’s banks refining their own security systems or a retailer holding customer data securely, everyone has a part to play.”
Criminals are increasingly, the authorities say, using sophisticated impersonation scams to trick customers into giving away their personal or security data. In these scams fraudsters contact customers by phone, email or text pretending to represent a trusted organisation asking for information. Often the fraudster will seem very convincing and claim there has been suspicious activity on an account, account details need to be ‘updated’ or ‘verified’, or a refund is due. A fraud then happens in one of two ways. The stolen data is either used by criminals to access customer accounts and withdraw money or to make card payments, or they try to trick customers into transferring money directly to them, for instance through investment or invoice fraud scams.
Take Five
The official Take Five campaign urges customers to help stay safe from fraud by following simple advice:
– A genuine bank or organisation will never contact you asking for your PIN, full password or to move money to a safe account.
– Never give out personal or financial information. Always contact the company directly using a known email or phone number.
– Don’t be tricked into giving a fraudster access to your details. Never automatically click on a link in an unexpected email or text.
– Always question uninvited approaches, in case it’s a scam.
