Financial Fraud Cost the UK £2 Million Each Day In 2016

Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) an industry body for United Kingdom’s (UK) payments industry has released a report that shows that financial fraud in the country resulted in over £2 million being lost daily in 2016.

The total amount involved in financial fraud was £768.8 million through 2016, a rise from the £755 million recorded in 2015. The figures were released as leading UK banks and financial institutions joined hands on the occasion of Take Five Day, to take collaborated action against financial fraud. This is an industry-wide effort to increase awareness amongst the public and educate them on ways protect themselves from financial fraud.

The increasing incidence of fraud has resulted in nearly 75 percent of people being worried about succumbing to fraudulent activities based on the report. Alarmingly, almost 71 percent have never discussed how to take protective action against financial fraud. Several hundreds of scams have been reported in previous years which has resulted in consumers losing money due to banks refusing refunds.

Financial Fraud Action UK

The Take Five Day has been created as a part of the Take Five campaign which hopes to encourage people to stop and think before sharing any personal or financial details to strangers.

In a statement Katy Worobec, director of FFA UK, said,

Tackling financial fraud is a priority for our members and a great deal of progress continues to be made. However, this remains a significant problem with fraudsters using increasingly sophisticated methods to circumvent bank technology and target victims. While the payments industry stops six in every 10 pounds of attempted fraud, it cannot solve the problem alone. Collective action is needed with banks, police and customers all playing their part

The Take Five campaign intends to alert consumers to various types of fraud that targets business and personal banking customers including email based scams called phishing , phone and text-based scams known as vishing and smishing respectively. Senior fraud prevention officer Tony Blake who works at the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit, provided simple steps can be taken by consumers can protect themselves and family members.

Top fraud prevention tips according to experts include never giving out security details such as passwords, not assuming the authenticity of a phone call or email, taking time to decide, and having the confidence to refuse unusual requests.

The campaign was aimed at encouraging them to discuss such protection measures and then implement them quickly. A separate report from fraud prevention service Cifas showed that there has been a staggering rise in identity theft rates, with 173,000 such cases having been recorded in just last year, the highest ever.

Charlie Harrison

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