Losses From Telephone Banking Fraud Rise 95%

The amount of money lost by consumers through telephone banking scams rose by a huge 95% in the first six months of 2015.

Telephone banking scams account for 4.4% of financial fraud overall, and were worth £14.4m between January and June alone, according to the Financial Fraud Action UK, a collective organisation to fight fraud encompassing banks, credit card issuers and card payment acquirers.

Common tactics used to trick consumers include calls claiming to be from your bank or the police to inform you that your account has been defrauded, before asking you to reveal personal or financial information like PIN numbers or passwords, perhaps through typing the digits into your keypad.

Online banking losses also rose, up 27% to £51.2m.

Losses across all remote banking methods totalled £65.9m in the first six months of 2015.

But the amount of money recovered by banks following remote banking fraud also increased.

A third - £20.6m - of total losses was clawed back from the scammers, while a whopping £293.5m worth of attempted remote banking scams were thwarted by bank security systems before any money could be stolen.

The picture surrounding card fraud was also encouraging; although total fraud losses on UK cards has gone up by 1%, the number of people using their card to make purchases has also grown substantially, meaning that card fraud as a proportion has actually fallen to 6.9p for every £100 spent.

Fraud on contactless payments also remained low with £516,500 lost against £2.58bn worth of spending between January and June.

Detective Chief Inspector Perry Stokes, head of the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit at Financial Fraud Action UK said: "Criminals can be extremely convincing, so it’s really important to be on guard. Be very cautious about giving out your personal information.

"If you get a call, text or email out of the blue asking for your details or for you to transfer money, then do not respond. Report it to your bank straight away."