UK Finance: Rampant telecoms fraud–Britons lose 1 million pounds a day

According to the figures released by the Banking Group UK finance, From January to June this year, there were 34,128 Authorised Push Payment Frauds (APPs), of which 31,510 were deceived and 2,618 were merchants. A total of 145.4 million pounds were defrauded, of which individuals were defrauded 9,290 Ten thousand pounds, the merchant was cheated 52.5 million pounds.

The so-called authorized buyer payment fraud means that the bank account owner is tricked into authorizing the payment to another account.UK finance began to count such frauds last year. There were 19,370 cases of APP fraud in the first half of last year, with losses of 101.2 million pounds.

But UK finance said this year’s figures were not comparable to those for the same period last year, as the financial sector began using new forms of identification at the start of the year and four more Banks provided statistics to UK finance.

A spokesman for Resolver, a complaint service agency, said: ” The most worrying thing about these Numbers is that they only include frauds that have been reported to the police, and thus are only the tip of the iceberg. With untold Numbers of people still unreported, an increasingly complex fraud could cost britons more than a million pounds a day, or more.”

According to the latest data released by the UK banking regulator at the end of September, the British were defrauded of 145 million pounds in the first half of this year, almost 1 million pounds a day.
Main types of fraud

“Malicious payee fraud” means that victims are tricked into authorizing the payment of money to the legitimate uses they deem, usually shopping or services, but in fact the money is cheated out. Such scams include purchases, prepayments, investments and dating.

“Malicious transfer” means that the victim intends to pay the money to a legitimate payee, but scammers cheat them into authorizing the payment of money to third parties designated by scammers, often including impersonating police, banks and bosses, counterfeit invoices, etc.

Purchase fraud

“Purchase fraud” means that the victim has paid for the goods or services in advance, but has not received them. Such scams often occur when victims use online shopping platforms, such as auction sites or social media.

The most common is for scammers to attract victims by selling cars or mobile phones and electronics on auction sites or social media at lower prices. Similar scams can be found in holiday homes and concert tickets.

Although such auction sites usually have a safer payment method, the scammer will try to convince the victim to pay by bank transfer, and the money that is eventually cheated cannot be recovered.




Prepayment fraud

“Prepayment fraud” means a part of a payment or an expensive commodity that a cheater lures the victim to pay in advance, the advance payment paid by the victim is naturally gone forever.

Common scams exploit victims’ greed. For example, a liar tells the victim to win overseas or someone mailed gold or metal to the victim, however, it has been detained by the customs and needs to be paid to get it.

Investment scam

Scammers cheat victims and tell them to invest money in a number of investment projects, attracting victims with high interest rates, which are fake. Common investment scams include investing in gold, property, hoarding land and wine.

Dating scam

Victims encounter scammers through social media or dating sites, and scammers send fake photos and sweet nothings, giving victims the confidence that they have established a relationship，then the liar starts borrowing money from the other party.
Usually this scam takes longer, and the victim may even be cheated several times, the money cheated from the beginning of the small number, and finally to defraud a large number of money.

Counterfeit invoices and authorizations

The victim paid the money to a legitimate payee, but the swindler transferred the funds to his account. Common tactics include scammers posing as construction workers, property lawyers, or fraudsters posing as suppliers, claiming account changes and tricking victims into transferring money to accounts they specify.
Impersonate a police or a bank

Scammers contact the victim, claiming to be a police or bank clerk, saying that the victim’s account was stolen and that the money needs to be transferred to a secure account. Victims are tricked into providing personal information, and scammers control the victim’s account and empty the money.

Also some cheater said they were secretly investigation, victims need to cooperate, to help them to investigate illegal activities, from a bank or a store victims believe, will be to cheat designated bank to withdraw money or designated by the shops, then cheats asked them to put the money and buy things to cheat arranged Courier, says these are evidence of the crime.

Impersonate another institution

Fraudsters pretend to be employees of telecommunications agencies, power companies and even government agencies, claiming that the victims face fines, and then remotely controlling the victim’s computer to defraud the victim’s bank data and emptying the account.




Impersonating the victim’s boss.

This kind of fraud is relatively rare, usually the victims are businessmen. The liar will impersonate the victim’s boss and ask him or her to transfer the legitimate payments that should be made to the account specified by the swindler.

A fraudster would hack into the victim’s company’s email system, send an email to the company’s finance department, impersonate the boss and issue instructions to change the original customer’s collection account or make an emergency payment to a new account.

The bank refused to pay the victim’s losses.



UK Finance report warns that online businesses, retailers and public utilities are leaking personal information from customers, leading to a significant increase in fraud cases. Scammers use the leaked or stolen information to contact the victim and convince them of their identity. The banking industry intends to refuse compensation for this reason.

UK Finance figures show that although the British were cheated 145 million pounds in the first half of this year, only 31 million pounds were refunded. And British financial institutions were criticised in the British press for their implicit plans to minimise compensation.

In August, Stephen Jones, the chief executive of British finance, sent a letter to UK financial regulators and banks saying that data breaches in retail and telecoms industries led to fraud, the Daily Mail revealed，Banks should not be allowed to bear this economic responsibility.

He also warned that more fraud could result if customers were not held accountable for more.

How to prevent fraud

Some of the precautions raised by British finance to prevent fraud include:
Banks or other institutions have never suddenly contacted their customers, asking them to provide a pin, password or transfer money to other accounts.

Don’t let cheaters know about your personal information or bank account information.

If you receive an unsolicited email or text message, do not click on the attachment or link above.

If you are unsure whether the phone or SMS received is from the bank, call the phone number on the back of the bank card.

PAYPAY.ME reminds that scammers are constantly emerging, and hackers are pervasive.