A government study of thousands of businesses found that fraud costs businesses an average of £16,000 each time they are hit.
A Home Office report found that one in five UK businesses fell victim to fraud between 2018 and 2020, but most did not report it to the police.
The report, written in 2020, was just released last week as part of a new government report. fraud strategysurveyed companies affected by criminal activity in seven business areas covering just 20 percent of all industries over the three years to 2020.
93% of small businesses fail to recover more than half of their fraud losses – Nearly half of the businesses surveyed said they had been scammed in the last 12 months, with an average loss of £241,000.
Across all seven industries, including retail and financial services, the fraud rate is approximately 3,917 per 1,000 businesses, indicating a high level of repeat victimization.
The Home Office extrapolated the data and concluded that there were about 4.5 million corporate fraud cases between 2018 and 2023.
But a Home Office study released this week as part of the new strategy did not calculate the total losses to businesses due to fraud.
Invoice fraud: Many small businesses are unaware of the risks – Worrying, many small businesses are unaware of the risks posed by invoice fraud, despite the potential loss of thousands of pounds.
Independent Annual Fraud Index A paper published in 2017 estimated that up to £190bn in annual losses from fraud in the UK was £140bn, of which £140bn was largely borne by the private sector, for example through procurement and payroll fraud. is.
Fraud against individuals is now the most common crime in the UK, with 3.7 million cases recorded in the 12 months to September last year.
It is estimated that financial fraud alone costs the UK around £7 billion each year.
Only a third of businesses reported recent fraud experiences to the police, and only 25 percent to Action Fraud, a national reporting service.
in the meantime, research Industry group UK Finance said Thursday that all of the ‘Authorized Push Payment’ (APP) scams where victims were tricked into sending money to accounts they didn’t own took place online or over the phone.
UK Treasury Chief Executive David Postings said. financial times Tech companies profit from criminal activity and should be funded to stop criminal activity, he said.