Fraud is a huge industry with countless victims and it’s getting worse.

Financial fraud losses across payment cards, remote banking and cheques totalled £755 million in 2015, an increase of 26 per cent compared to 2014.

Prevented fraud totalled £1.76 billion in 2015. This is incidents that were detected and prevented by the banks and card companies and is equivalent to £7 in every £10 of attempted fraud being stopped.

Card Fraud can be split up as follows:-

70% is remote purchases – i.e. where stolen card details are used

13% is lost and stolen –

2% is card not received i.e. the card is stolen in transit

8% is counterfeit cards

7% is card ID theft – the fraudster uses the person’s identity information to get their card details

All of these frauds are rising except for counterfeit cards which is probably dropping as a result of chip and pin technology.

We all need to be more aware then ever of these scams and how to avoid them.

Further information available at http://www.financialfraudaction.org.uk/cms/assets/1/2015%20year%20end%20fraud%20update%20report.pdf