£31 million stolen by fraudsters in Cornwall and Devon during the pandemic
Action Fraud says over 10,500 incidents of fraud and cyber crime have been reported in the last year alone
Last updated 27th Apr 2021
Fraudsters have fleeced more than £30 million from people living in Devon and Cornwall during the coronavirus pandemic – with most victims stung in online shopping scams, figures have revealed.
Criminals have taken advantage of the rise in internet purchases as well as concerns over health and wellbeing through the crisis, says Action Fraud, the UK's fraud and cyber crime authority.
In Devon and Cornwall, 10,630 incidents of fraud and cyber crime were reported from the start of February last year to the end of March this year, according to data from Action Fraud.
The value of the crimes amounted to £31 million, the equivalent of around £7,311 each day.
Across Great Britain, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, 448,700 reports of fraud and cyber crime were made to Action Fraud over the 14-month period. Victims’ losses totalled £1.9 billion.
And Devon and Cornwall's figure could be higher with some 23,600 reported offences – worth £469.4 million – not recorded to a specific police force area.
The figures also show online shopping scams were most common type of fraud and cyber crime, along with advance fee and computer software frauds and criminals using the Covid vaccine roll-out to try to target victims.
A spokesperson for Action Fraud said: “In what has been an incredibly challenging year, we have sadly seen devious criminals taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic as a means to commit fraud.
"To carry out their scams, criminals have been honing in on people’s anxieties and the changes that have occurred to our daily lives, such as the fact we have all been shopping online more."
Action Fraud
Consumer group Which? Said the figures showed online purchase scams were now being running on an "industrial scale" – and accused tech giants of not doing enough to protect users.
"The coronavirus crisis has meant that more people are shopping online than ever before, while opportunistic scammers have been coming up with increasingly sophisticated tactics to steal people's money.
"Search engines and social media sites have some of the most sophisticated technology in the world, yet they are failing to use it to protect their users from scammers abusing the platforms through fake and fraudulent content."
Adam French, Consumer Rights Expert
In response, Google, which runs the most-used search engine worldwide, said it had "strict policies" over advertisements run on its platform with 3.1 billion advertisements, including 123 million for financial services, blocked and removed last year.
It also claims to block 100 million emails to users each day.
However, the company said it was seeing an increasing number of fraudsters promoting bogus businesses or running phone-based scams to lure users off its platforms and avoid detection.
The Action Fraud figures also show the age of victims in the reported fraud and cyber crime offences over the 14-month period from February last year.
In Devon and Cornwall, the most commonly targeted were people aged between 50 and 59, with around 1,800 reported victims making up 17% of all those who gave an age.
There were some 3,400 reports with victims aged 60 and over – 32% – including 64 aged between 90 and 99.
You can check the full figures by region here.
How can I protect myself from online fraud?
Devon and Cornwall Police say there are several measures you can take to protect yourself whilst online.
1) Change your passwords at least every three months and never use the same password for different accounts. (If a company is hacked the hackers could use the information they steal to try and access other accounts you have). At the very least always use a different password for online banking.
2) Never give your credit card details or bank account information via email
3) Don’t open attachments or emails from people you don’t know
4) Don’t become online friends with people you don’t know
5) Never arrange to meet someone in person you’ve met online
6) If anything you see or read online worries you, report it.
7) Avoid giving out personal details on the Internet especially to people you don’t know. These could include your name, home address or telephone number.
If you are victim of an online scam or online fraud, please report it to Action Fraud.
Devon and Cornwall Police