The majority of fraud losses is caused by credit and debit card breaches. Some GBP 322 million was lost on remote purchase fraud, which was up 31% on the same period of 2015, including lost and stolen cards, cards not received, counterfeit cards and ID theft.
In terms of remote banking fraud, which covers mobile, online and telephone scams, losses totalled GBP 70 million, up from GBP 66 million last year.
Online losses were up nine per cent to GBP 55 million while mobile losses were up 120% to GBP 2 million, suggesting this is a new avenue scammers are now starting to exploit. Meanwhile, telephone fraud losses actually dropped 11% annually.
The data shows that banks security systems prevented fraud totalling GBP 680 million. This is equivalent to GBP 6 in every GBP 10 of attempted fraud being blocked.
FFA UK is urging customers to be vigilant of any unsolicited phone calls, text messages and emails and to be extremely cautious about giving out any personal and security information unless absolutely sure they know who they are dealing with.
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