These five steps can save you from being a victim of fraud

Authorised push payment (APP) fraud happens when you are tricked by a criminal into sending money by bank payment to an account that they control and which you do not. In 2023, the number of cases of this type of fraud rose by 12 per cent to 232,429, resulting in losses of £459.7m, according to UK Finance, which represents 300 firms across the financial services industry.

- TALIA LODERICK

New rules by the Payment Systems Regulator came into force this week, which means all payment services providers, including banks and building societies, have to refund the majority of victims scammed in this way, up to a limit of £85,000. These rules apply to payments made on, or after, 7 October 2024.

I’ve spoken to one victim who lost £25,000 to this type of fraud and welcomes the new rules. She says the onus is on the banks to strengthen their systems to prevent fraud from happening. Mya, 45, runs a media production business and was conned out of £25,000 by fraudsters, a situation that – two years on – still leaves her feeling “absolutely sick” and ultimately distrustful of any call she receives from her bank.

She says: “I’ve got my bank’s phone number saved because my transactions get blocked all the time because I send international transactions. So, when my bank’s number came up on my mobile phone, I had no reason to suspect it wasn’t them. I now know that this is known as spoofing. Where the criminals managed to spoof my bank’s phone number.”

“I answered and it was a male voice, British,” she continued. “He asked if I’d gone into my local branch that week to make a large transaction. I said no. He said, ‘We think we’ve seen someone who’s tried to move money from your account and we believe that they’ve got help from someone within the branch to do it’. They wanted my permission to help them build a case so they could report it to the fraud authorities.