FOI reference: FOI-2024-2294
You asked
Good afternoon,
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I would like to request data on reported incidents of online shopping scams or fraud across the United Kingdom. Specifically, I am seeking the following:
- The total number of reported online shopping scams or fraud incidents across the UK over the past year (from 01.09.2023 to 01.09.2024)
- A breakdown of these incidents by city, covering as many UK cities as possible.
- If available, any additional details on the nature of these incidents (e.g., types of scams, most commonly affected products, or amounts lost).
We said
Thank you for your request regarding online shopping scams or fraud across the UK, between September 2023 and September 2024. Unfortunately, we do not hold the specific information that you have requested.
The ONS publishes figures on crime in England and Wales primarily based on the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime data. We publish statistics from the CSEW on fraud and computer misuse in our quarterly bulletins. Table A1 in our Crime in England and Wales: appendix tables includes incidents of Fraud, with a breakdown for 'consumer and retail fraud'.
We have also published CSEW data on the financial loss suffered by victims of fraud in the Nature of crime: fraud and computer misuse tables. You can find this data in tables 8a- 8e. Table 8c shows financial loss suffered by victims of consumer and retail fraud. These tables also include data on the type of fraud and impacts on victims. Please note that the CSEW is a sample victimisation survey of adults living in households across England and Wales, so this data does not cover financial losses for the United Kingdom as a whole.
We also publish data recorded by Action Fraud or referred to the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) in our Crime in England and Wales appendix tables. Table A5 presents the number of fraud and compute misuse offences recorded by Action Fraud or referred to the NFIB. It includes a breakdown for 'Online shopping and auctions' under 'Consumer and retail fraud'. Fraud and computer misuse offences recorded by Action Fraud or referred to the NFIB are also presented by police force area in our Crime in England and Wales police force area tables (Table P9) and broken down by quarter in our Crime in England and Wales quarterly data tables.
Fraud offences reported to the police are recorded and collected by the NFIB from Action Fraud and two industry bodies: Cifas and UK Finance. This data is supplied to us by the Home Office who may be able to assist you further and can be contacted at CrimeandPoliceStats@homeoffice.gov.uk.
Action Fraud may also be able to help you with your enquiry. They can be contacted at https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/contact-us. Please see https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/fraud-stats for further information about the data held by the NFIB.
If you have any other queries, you can contact us at crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk