The ten most common types of scam revealed and how to make sure you don’t get caught out

FRAUDSTERS in the UK stole a whopping £753.9million in the first half of 2021 alone.

That means criminals walked away with over four million quid in stolen money every single day.

This represents a 30% increase in the number of fraud cases since last year, according to UK Finance who collect the data.

Scammers are getting even more sophisticated meaning more people are losing money than ever before.

Criminals rely on people thinking "it won't happen to me" and not knowing about the new methods they have to con people.

The most common kind of fraud was authorised push payment fraud (APP) which is when scammers tricking you into transferring money across.

There was 71% increase in APP fraud during the first half of 2021 and, for the first time, the amount of money stolen through APP fraud overtook card fraud losses.

Scammers have been targeting people as young as 14 via social media platforms to become money mules, where their bank account is used to launder stolen money.

There has also been a big increase in the use of cryptocurrency wallets, which are used to take stolen money outside of the banking system quickly.

UK Finance says that there is now so much fraud that it poses a national security threat.

Here's the ten most common types of scam - how they work and how to stay safe.

Unauthorised payment card fraud

This is the most common kind of scam, with over 1.4million cases reported in the first half of 2021.

One common example of this is when lost or stolen cards are used to spend money. Sometimes criminals will clone a card, often by tampering with a cash machine.

Scammers may also sell details of your card number, card holder name, date of birth and address. This is also known as ‘card-not-present’ fraud.