Which reveals UK fraud hotspotsTop Stories

June 16, 2017 19:10
Which reveals UK fraud hotspots

Norfolk county is surrounded by dating scams, Surrey succumbs to investment fraud and the mid Wales suffers from computer cons, according to data collected from the United Kingdom cyber-crime center Action Fraud.

Consumer watchdog company “Which?” collected the data came via Freedom of Information request.

Which wants the government to work harder to tackle the problem.

A recent survey conducted by the Office of National Statistics suggested there are 5.4 million fraud and computer misuse cases a year.

According to the BBC other findings include:

−Northamptonshire residents are most likely to report suffering online shopping and auction scams - it affected 21.6 victims per 10,000 compared to 16.9 nationally.

−Those living in Dorset fall for computer virus, malware and spyware fraud with 15,561 reports from 2014 to 2016.

−Warwickshire is a victim of retail fraud with 30,944 in the same timeframe.

−London is the fraud capital of a range of scams, including 16,249 reports of social media hacking.

The data could not explain why certain frauds occur more in some regions rather than others. The reason might be that several fraud cases go unreported so the data is incomplete.

There were at least 264,204 frauds reported to Action Fraud in 2016, but the data is said to be a fraction of those that occur.

The Which’s report suggested that certain demographics are targeted by different scam groups. For example, the fake computer fixes scam tend to focus on elderly women living in rural areas.

There is an interactive map where people can check out the most commonly occurring scams in their country.

The Commander of London Police, Dave Clark who is the National Co-ordinator for Economic Crime said: "Fraud and cyber crime are global problems with many of the offenders targeting UK citizens from overseas."

"Law enforcement is not the single solution to this phenomenon. The solution requires every individual, business and organisation to take responsibility to ensure they take steps to protect themselves and others," he said

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Tagged Under :
UK  Scams  Hotspot  Norfolk