Tuesday 22nd January, 2013

Research analysis of fraud trends during 2012 by CIFAS (the UK's Fraud Prevention Service) reveals a 5% increase in the overall level of fraud, when compared with the previous year. While the rate of the increase has slowed from 2011, further key findings present a more complex picture of the true state of the economic crime landscape in the UK.

Nearly 250,000 frauds were identified in 2012. This represents a smaller rate of increase from the 9% surge recorded in 2011, but still constitutes the largest number of confirmed frauds ever recorded in a single year by organisations participating in the CIFAS national fraud data sharing scheme.

CIFAS Head of Communications, Kate Beddington-Brown, comments: “Fraud is frequently described as a victimless crime, but this is far from the truth. Whether it is an individual being impersonated, or public and private organisations losing funds due to fraudulent applications and transactions, the net effect is that the economic squeeze gets worse.”

She added; “Fraud acts as an impediment to business recovery and damages cashflow for us all; as losses incurred inevitably get passed on to society at large.”

The fraudulent use of identity details (either those of an innocent victim or completely fictitious ones) is the biggest and most perturbing fraud threat. 50% of all frauds identified during 2012 relate to the impersonation of an innocent victim or the use of completely false identities.

Furthermore, Facility (or Account) Takeover Fraud – where a fraudster gains access to and hijacks the running of an account (e.g. theft of security details through computer hacking, interception of post details, social engineering through popular websites etc) – rocketed by 53% compared with the previous year.

This means that those frauds where the criminal requires identity details accounted for almost 2 in 3 (65%) of all frauds in 2012. The number of victims of both types of fraud has – when combined – also risen by 24% from the levels in 2011; underlining the very real cost of these crimes.