Office of Fair Trading research shows the scale of mass-marketing scams in Britain

The Office of Fair Trading has recently published the results of its nationwide survey into the scale of mass-marketed scams in Britain. Scam artists use many elaborate methods on unsuspecting individuals in order to make them part with their cash. These include scams via post, email, text, phone and the internet. The survey found that:

• Around one in 11 adults say they have responded to a scam at some time in their life and a third of these have lost money as a result of this.

• One in 25 adults responded to a scam in the last 12 months.

• Around half of those scammed lost more than £50 in total, with five per cent losing more than £5000.

• E-mail is now the most common scam approach with 73 per cent of adults receiving a scam e-mail in the past year. This is followed by scams via a letter (21 per cent) and via text message (12 per cent). Social media sites also appear to be emerging as a new route for scammers with nine per cent of adults receiving an approach through sites such as Bebo and Facebook.

• Around a third of adults who responded to a scam then received further correspondence from the scammer, with over half (54 per cent) being asked to send money, and a third (36 per cent) being asked to send personal information.

The summary was conducted to coincide with the OFT’s Scam Awareness Month.

[1] OFT press release