Fraud: year ending December 2017

Attempted fraud and fraud offences involving a loss in England and Wales. Including cyber crime, computer misuse, false accounting, and banking fraud.

This page is part of the latest crime collection

Release date: 26 April 2018

Release frequency: Quarterly

Next release: September 2018 (provisional)

No change in fraud offences in the last year, following four years of rises

England and Wales, year ending March 2012 to year ending December 2017

Source: Action Fraud, National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB)

  • Over half (1.8 million) of fraud incidents were cyber-related
  • Less than one-fifth of fraud incidents are reported

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All main sources of fraud data suggest no increase

3.2 million fraud offences were measured by the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). This has not increased from the results of last year’s survey.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) provides the best indication of the volume of fraud offences directly experienced by individuals in England and Wales. CSEW estimates cover a wide range of fraud offences, including attempts and offences involving a loss, and include incidents not reported to the authorities.

Recorded crime showed a similar volume of fraud offences in the year ending December 2017 (639,457 offences) compared with the previous year (639,476 offences).

This separate source of fraud data incorporates fraud offences collated by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) from Action Fraud, Cifas and UK Finance and referred to the police for investigation.

The number of incidents estimated by the CSEW is substantially higher than the number of incidents referred to the NFIB, as the survey captures a large volume of lower-harm cases that are less likely to have been reported to the authorities.

Small fall in banking and credit industry fraud, cheque, card and online bank account fraud

Although there was no overall change, differences were shown in the number of offences recorded in the last year.

Overall offences showed:

  • Cifas fell by 7% (down to 283,284 offences)
  • UK Finance fell by 6% (down to 82,575 offences)

The falls reported by both Cifas and UK Finance were due largely to a decrease in the volume of “banking and credit industry fraud".

This latest decrease reported by Cifas follows a period of increases seen in this type of fraud, and is driven largely by a decrease in “cheque, plastic card and online bank accounts fraud” (down 5% to 169,504 offences).

Cifas also reported a 3% decrease in “application fraud” referred to NFIB. This includes opening up an account using fake or stolen documents in someone else’s name.

Again, this latest decrease in application fraud reported by Cifas follows previous large rises and is thought to reflect a return to normal levels after a spike in reporting in September 2016, as well as banks taking more preventative measures.

There was a 10% increase in offences reported to Action Fraud. These were driven by increases in “advance fee payment fraud" (up 32% to 52,469 offences) and “consumer and retail fraud” (up 4% to 105,921 offences).

Rate of fraud in Southern England slightly higher than in Wales or northern England

The latest police force area data show there was generally less variation in rates of fraud by police force area than for most other types of crime, although rates for force areas in southern England were generally a little higher than those among force areas in Wales or northern England.

Drop in offences such as investment fraud or charity fraud

The only category of fraud to show a significant change was “other fraud” (down 64%, from 97,000 to 35,000 offences).

Table 6: Crime Survey for England and Wales fraud - number of incidents for year ending December 2016 and year ending December 2017 with percentage change

England and Wales Adults aged 16 and over
Offence group Jan '16
to Dec '16		 Jan '17
to Dec '17		 Percentage change
and significance
Number of incidents (thousands)
Fraud 3,480 3,241 -7
    Bank and credit account fraud 2,454 2,332 -5
Consumer and retail fraud 827 813 -2
   Advance fee fraud 102 61 -41
   Other fraud 97 35 -64 *
Unweighted base - number of adults 17,500 20,974

Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, Office for National Statistics

Notes:

  • Statistically significant change at the 5% level is indicated by an asterisk.
  • Non-investment fraud has been renamed as 'Consumer and retail fraud' to reflect the corresponding name change to the Home Office Counting Rules from April 2017.
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Fraud data

This page mainly reports on data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which collates data from Action Fraud, Cifas and UK Finance.

View all data

More information on both these sources can be found in the User guide to crime statistics for England and Wales.

Using fraud data

Glossary

Fraud
Fraud involves a person dishonestly and deliberately deceiving a victim for personal gain of property or money, or causing loss or risk of loss to another.

Fraud by false representation
Where a person makes a representation that they know to be untrue or misleading. This covers a broad range of fraudulent activity, including dating scams (where the intended victim is befriended by a fraudster online and tricked into sending them money for a variety of emotive reasons), lottery scams (where the potential victim is told they have won a non-existent lottery prize and needs to pay a fee to release the winnings) and inheritance fraud (offering the false promise of an inheritance to trick victims into paying money or sharing bank or credit card details).

Other fraud
Types of fraud where the number of offences are considered too small for measurement by the survey are covered by the “other fraud” category. This includes offences such as charity fraud, frauds by false representation and obtaining services dishonestly.

Banking and payment card frauds
The most prevalent type of fraud, usually involving falsely obtaining or using personal bank or payment card details in order to carry out fraudulent transactions.

Computer misuse crime
Covers any unauthorised access to computer material, as set out in the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (Annex 2 provides further information). This is not limited to desk or laptop computers and can include any device using operating software accessible online, for example, games consoles, smart phones and smart TVs. It includes offences such as the spread of viruses and other malicious software, hacking and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks (the flooding of internet servers to take down network infrastructure or websites).

A comprehensive guide to crime types and definitions can be found in the User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales.

How do we measure this?

This page is part of our quarterly Crime Collection. Fraud data comes from:

Crime Survey of England and Wales
The Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) is a survey which asks people whether they have been victims of a crime over the past 12 months.

National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB)
The NFIB sits alongside Action Fraud within the City of London Police which is the national policing lead for fraud.

The NFIB gets its data from:

  • Reports made to Action Fraud from individuals and small businesses (coming directly or via a police force)
  • Industry and the public sector, including banking, insurance, telecommunications and government departments
  • Intelligence sources, including national and international police crime/intelligence systems

More information on both these sources can be found in the User guide to crime statistics for England and Wales.

More information on the methodology can be found in the Crime in England and Wales Quality and Methodology Information report.

What do you need to know?

Strengths and limitations of the data
The Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) has been consistent since 1981 and is the best source to use when looking at trends over time. It is also a better measurement of crimes which are less likely to be reported to the police, such as sexual offences.

The CSEW provides the best indication of the volume of fraud offences directly experienced by people. Its estimates cover a range of fraud offences, including attempts and offences involving a loss, and include incidents not reported to the authorities.

The number of incidents estimated by the CSEW is substantially higher than the number of incidents referred to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), as the survey captures a large volume of lower-harm cases that are less likely to have been reported to the authorities.

NFIB data will only include crimes that the victim considers serious enough to report to the authorities or where there are viable lines of investigation.

The CSEW suggests that less than one-fifth (17.3%) of incidents of fraud either come to the attention of the police or are reported by the victim to Action Fraud.

Time periods covered
The Crime Survey for England and Wales data on this page are based on interviews conducted between January 2017 and December 2017, measuring peoples’ experiences of crime in the 12 months before the interview.

“Latest year” (or “latest survey year”) refers to the (survey) year ending December 2017.
“Previous year” (or “previous survey year”) refers to the (survey) year ending December 2016.

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More pages in this collection

Crime overview

Over the long-term, crime has fallen, but some crimes have risen slightly in the previous 12 months.

Released: 26 April 2018

Homicide

Homicide has increased by 9% to 653.

Released: 26 April 2018

Violent crime

Little change in levels of violent crime in recent years.

Released: 26 April 2018

Weapons crimes

Police recorded 7,130 (22%) more crimes involving weapons, with knife crime in cities rising most.

Released: 26 April 2018

More about fraud

Contact us

Mark Bangs
crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk
+44 (0)2075 928689

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