Whilst the current COVID-19 crisis has brought many businesses and operations to a standstill, one area it hasn’t diminished is fraud. The sad truth is that fraudsters don’t stop their crimes because of a pandemic. In fact, they often seize the immense change that comes with an event like this to ramp up their activity – targeting individuals and businesses whilst they are at their most vulnerable and least protected.
In fact, recent data covering the first six months of 2020 showed that £208m was stolen in reported “authorised push payment fraud”, where victims unwittingly send their money to a criminal-controlled account. Losses from internet banking fraud, when a fraudster gains access to a customer’s bank account through online banking and makes an unauthorised transfer of money, jumped by 32 percent to £64.3m, compared with the same period in 2019. These figures are what makes this year’s Fraud Awareness Week more important than ever before.
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