Financial scam committed ‘every 15 seconds’

Banks claim they are stopping £7 of every £10 in potential fraud losses, but millions of pounds are still being lost to fraudsters.

Last year, financial fraud losses reached £755m – a 26% increase on the previous year.

You can probably add to that a significant sum that goes unreported every year.

Email deception, as well as phone and text-based scams, are now common tools in the modern-day bank robber’s trade – reflected in official crime figures which now include fraud data.

Fraud and cyber crime account for nearly half of all offences, according to the British Crime Survey.

Police experts say that consumers are aware of the dangers of giving out personal details, but can still be caught out.

A survey by FFA suggested that this was most commonly because victims felt the caller was genuine, with nearly four in 10 being caught out as they felt pressurised, with a similar proportion letting their guard down when they were busy.