The amount of money stolen through bank transfer scams increased by 40% during the first half of this year, according to new official data.
Criminals are thought to be stealing more than £1m each and every day through such scams.
According to UK Finance, the trade association for the banking and finance industry, scammers stole £616m during the first six months of 2019.
It is estimated that £207.5m was taken by scammers who tricked people into authorising payments to their accounts. This represents an increase of 40% compare to the figure for the same period in 2018. However, UK Finance does warn that the year-on-year numbers can’t necessarily be compared directly.
The most common type of scam is known as an APP (authorised push payment) and often involves criminals hacking into email accounts of individuals or companies. Once they have the victim’s data, the scammers trick victims into authorising large payments into their bank accounts.
Various measures have been put in place to try and ensure that banks do more to protect their customers against fraud.
A new voluntary code came into effect this year which required banks to improve their handling of fraud. UK Finance points out that their new figures “reflect just one month” of the new process, as the code only came into effect on the 28th of May.
Another system for handling fraud was set to be introduced this summer, but this has been pushed back until next year. From next year UK banks will start carrying out name checks when their customers send money to other people.
UK Finance also reported that ‘digital skimmers’ were also being used to defraud online shoppers by stealing their card details on online stores. The criminals add malicious code to retailer’s sites in order to reveal the victim’s card details during the checkout process. These details are then used by the fraudsters to purchase other items online.
Cheque fraud is also back on the rise, seeing £29.4m lost to cheque fraud over 1,515 different cases.
Despite the use of cheques falling rapidly, the amount lost from cheque fraud in the first half of 2019 came in at £29.4m - a big jump from the £3.3m lost during the first half of 2018 and a staggering 789% increase year-on-year.
The main targets for such cheque scams are businesses. Some businesses who print their own cheques are not using paper with robust security features, whereas others are not keeping their cheque books stored securely - making them easy targets for fraudsters.
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