Danielle Lightfoot, Solicitor and Head of the Financial Litigation Department at Oakwood Solicitors, considers the latest figures released in the UK Finance Half Year Fraud Report 2024 for Authorised Push Payment scams (APP) and bank fraud in the first half of 2024.
What is Authorised Push Payment Fraud?
In an authorised push payment scam (APP), a criminal will trick their victim into sending money dircetly from their bank account to an account which the criminal controls.
The criminals will often use tactics of deception and impersonation to add credibility to the scam, often posing as family members, friends, celebrities, well knowns companies, or even your bank.
The criminals will use a range of methods of contact including telephone, email and text messages. However with the growth of social media it has become easier than ever to target large groups of people with fake adverts for goods and investments which never materialise once payment has been made.
Danielle Lightfoot comments:
“It has long been accepted that more needs to be done to protect consumers from scams and bank fraud.
“The latest figures release by Finance UK for the period January to June 2024 do show a fall in the number of recorded victims of scams, and a drop in the gross loss suffered by these victims compared to the same time last year, however the figures are still frightening.”
Figures for Authorised Push Payment Fraud January – June 2024
| APP |
January – June 2024 |
| Number of Cases |
97,344 |
| Payments |
178,230 |
| Gross Loss |
£213.7m |
| Amount Returned to Victims |
£126.7m |
The above chart shows how the £213.7m is divided between the different types of Scams and how much was lost to each scam type between January to June 2024.
Victims of investment scams lost the most money at £56.4m despite making up only 4% of the 97,344 cases (table below). It is evidence therefore that those criminals who are orchestrating investment scams are tricking victims into parting with large sums of money on the promise of high returns.
Unfortunately, in reality these investments never existed, and the criminals have instead simply stolen the money.
We can see from the chart above that Purchase Scams make up over 70% of the 97,344 reported scam cases. In a Purchase Scam the victim pays in advance for goods or services that are never received.
These scams are usually online scams whereby the criminals advertise goods for sale, the victim then transfers the money to purchase the goods, but the goods are not sent, or most likely never existed.
Examples of Purchase Scams include, advertisements for the sale of; cars, technology products such as phones and computers; or holiday rentals and concert tickets.
How much of the £213.7m lost by the victims of APP Fraud was recovered?
The above table shows a comparison between the amount of money lost each year to APP scams and bank fraud compared with how much was recovered by the victims. Year on year we can see that although some victims have recovered their money, there still remains large amounts of money not recovered.
Danielle Lightfoot comments:
“Whilst the statistics for the amounts of money recovered since 2020 offer some reassurance that the Regulatory framework is, to some extent at least, giving consumers a degree of protection and an avenue in which to recover their losses this figure could be much higher and it is the responsibility of the FCA to ensure that consumers know what protections are in place, and to monitor the banks to ensure they are dealing with the victims of APP scams and bank fraud fairly, and in accordance with the Regulations.”
If you have been the victim of an APP scam or bank Fraud and you would like more information on how the Regulatory framework can help you recover your money then please get in touch with Oakwood Solicitors and one of our experts will be happy to assist you.
Further reading
Bank fraud and scam claims – Oakwood Solicitors
10 Black Friday scams to look out for – Oakwood Solicitors
£85,000 to be refunded within five days under new Payment Systems Regulators rules for APP scams – Oakwood Solicitors
Action Fraud – Website
WHAT TO DO NEXT
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Danielle Lightfoot is a Director and our Head of the Financial Litigation Department. Danielle joined the firm as a Paralegal in 2011 and qualified as a solicitor in October 2014. She has acquired ext…
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