FOI reference: FOI-2024-1979
You asked
How many victims of AP scams were recorded in 2023?
We said
Thank you for your request regarding how many victims of AP scams were recorded in 2023. We believe the term AP scams you are referring to are Authorised Push Payment scams (bank transfer fraud).
The ONS publishes figures on crime in England and Wales based primarily on the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime data. Fraud offences reported to the police are recorded and collected by the NFIB from Action Fraud and two industry bodies, Cifas and UK Finance and show data by both individuals and businesses.
We produce figures on the number of fraud incidents involving authorised push payments that are reported to UK Finance by member organisations. There were 232,431 incidents in the year ending December 2023 across the UK. These data are available in Table F10 of our Crime in England and Wales: Other related tables.
UK Finance is responsible for coordinating activities on fraud prevention in the UK payments industry and represents members from retail banks, credit, debit and charge card issuers, and card payment acquirers in the UK. Authorised Push Payment (APP fraud) was included in the UK Finance CAMIS data for the first time for the year ending December 2017. APP fraud relates to cases where victims are tricked into sending money directly from their account to an account that the fraudster controls. It is important to note that UK Finance data relate only to fraud that is identified and reported, and only fraud affecting those organisations that are part of the respective membership networks. As such, neither dataset can provide a complete picture of fraud in the industry sectors they represent.
We also publish fraud statistics in our quarterly bulletins and Nature of crime: fraud and computer misuse articles and accompanying datasets which may be of interest to you. Our most recent Crime in England and Wales: appendix tables show the estimated number of fraud incidents experienced by individuals in the year ending December 2023 and authorised payment scams would be included in 'banking and credit card fraud' but are not separately identifiable (Appendix table A1).
If you have any further questions, you can email us at CrimeStatistics@ons.gov.uk and we will endeavor to help.