Fraudsters steal £3m a day as cases rise

When criminals dupe their victims into sending them money by pretending to be a legitimate company, such as their bank or a tradesperson, or by selling goods that do not exist, this is known as APP fraud.

New mandatory rules took effect on 7 October which will see UK banks refund APP fraud victims up to £85,000 within five days.

Before the compulsory rules came in, most banks had signed up to a voluntary reimbursement code.

There were 97,344 cases of APP fraud in the first half of the year, with total losses of £214m.

“Fraud continues to pose a major threat in this country,” said Ben Donaldson, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance.

“In addition to the financial impact, this crime can cause severe psychological harm to victims.

“This isn’t a fight we will win alone.”

On Sunday, Charlie Nunn, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, accused Meta, the tech giant which owns social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, of “enabling” people to be contacted by fraudsters running online scams.

Meta said in response that its “pilot Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange programme (FIRE)” was designed to enable banks to “share information so we can work together to protect people using our respective services”.