Considering all the different types of fraud, there was a 16% rise in the number of cases compared to in 2023.
The overall amount lost to con artists was in fact 1.5% lower than it was at the same stage last year, according to UK Finance’s Half Year Fraud Report 2024.
Money lost to scammers through authorised push payment (APP) fraud dropped by 11% to £213.7, with £165m lost to personal accounts and the rest to businesses.
In total, APP cases – where someone is tricked into sending money to a trusted company through a link sent to them by a scammer – were down by 16% to 97,344.
Across the board, romance scams, purchase scams, investment scams and impersonation scams all dropped. Indeed, the types of cases where a con artist pretends to be from a bank or the police to request a transfer of money fell by a third (32%).
How life insurance can benefit your health and wellbeing over the decades
Sponsored by Post Office
Purchase scams, where customers pay for a product that doesn’t ever arrive, were down by over a tenth (11%).
The total losses returned to victims was £126.7m, which equates to just 59% of all the losses victims had.
This report comes after new bank scam rules implemented on 7 October mean banks must refund fraud victims within five days and up to a limit of £85,000.
APP scams have been an ever-growing threat to victims over the last five years, with the number soaring by 12% to 232,429 separate cases in 2023.
While the damage of APP scams has slowed, there has been a surge in the amount of unauthorised fraud on transactions with cards, cheques and remote banking – totalling £358m in the first half of 2024.
UK Finance noted in the report that 98% of losses with unauthorised fraud cases were fully refunded. The total number of those cases from January to June was just over one-and-a-half million – an increase of almost a fifth (19%) on the same period in 2023.
However, banks prevented £710.9m of unauthorised fraud leaving the accounts of customers, which works out at £6.65 out of every £10 of attempted fraud not going to scammers.
‘Reimbursement is only part of solution’
But, Ben Donaldson, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance, said that “while reimbursement is important in the fight against fraud, it can only be part of the solution.”
Donaldson said: “In addition to the financial impact, this crime can cause severe psychological harm to victims.
“This isn’t a fight we will win alone, as our data again shows that most fraud originates online and via telecommunications networks. There have been some improvements made by other sectors, but their actions don’t yet fully match the scale of the problem – more needs to be done to prevent fraudsters exploiting these platforms and networks.”
He added: “Criminals will keep adapting, which means we all need to remain focused on reducing fraud and thereby protect customers and society from the adverse effects of this awful crime.”
This week, the latest APP fraud saw pensioners sent messages from scammers purporting to be from the UK Home Office who were promising a replacement for a loss of Winter Fuel Payment.
Reacting to the report, Rocio Concha, Which?’s director of policy and advocacy, said: “While it’s encouraging to see a reduction in authorised push payment fraud cases, the numbers remain far too high.
“The Government and regulators need to get tough with weak links in the fight against fraud, from the online platforms and telecoms providers where the majority of scams start, to banks and payment firms that aren’t taking fraud security seriously enough.”
Concha added: “Which? is calling on the Home Office to take the lead on a joined-up approach [that] puts the public first, ensuring all relevant Government departments, regulators and business sectors take more responsibility for tackling fraud at source and treating victims fairly.”
