January 2016
Focus on Fraud
UK losing over £98 billion to fraud Source: University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Counter Fraud Studies and accountancy firm, PKF Littlejohn February 2015
Fraud rises 10% in a year According to figures published on the 16th October 2015, in the past year there has been a 9.4% increase in fraud cases referred to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) with around 600,000 cases being referred. However, due to the NFIB only receiving information on fraud where there is actionable intelligence on the crime, the true scale of fraud is likely to be much higher. Over the past year the NFIB, part of the City of London Police, disrupted 4,000 websites, bank accounts and phone lines, and helped prevent fraud to the tune of £369 million. The majority of fraud being referred by the NFIB affects the bank and credit card industry which over the past year has seen an increase of almost 10%.
Our aim is to help our clients minimise their fraud risks through robust policies, procedures and review processes. The purpose of this newsletter is to draw your attention to and give you an overview of recent cases of fraud that have been in the press, to therefore help you identify potential fraudulent activity that could be occurring within your business.
Britons face '8 scam calls a second' It has been claimed that since 2010 around 3.5 million Britons have fallen victim to telephone fraud. This may be due to a number of reasons, but most worryingly is the development of increasingly sophisticated techniques used by criminals to con money out of their victims.
On average, around eight scam calls are made every second. According to the Money Advice Service (MAS), this equates to more than 6 in 10 people receiving a suspicious phone call in the last 12 months, and more than 4 in 10 targeted in the last month alone. Worryingly, the amount of money extracted through phone fraud has doubled in the first half of 2015 compared to the same period last year. Phone scammers generally claim to be calling from familiar companies and organisations - such as banks, utility firms, suppliers or the police before trying to con money or information out of their victims. In the past year, almost 1 in 20 adults received a scam call that came from
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