Fraud in England and Wales: year ending December 2017

There are two main sources of data for this release:

1. 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.
2. Police recorded crime
   Police recorded crime is crime that has been reported to the police, and recorded as part of police casework.

Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics.

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.

Strengths and limitations of the data
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. The survey has been consistent since 1981 and therefore 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.

Police recorded crime is crime that has been reported to the police, and recorded as part of police casework, making these figures sensitive to changes in policing practices and victims’ willingness to report crime. Therefore, an increase in the number of crimes recorded by the police does not necessarily mean that crime itself has increased. While it is good for understanding how much work police forces are carrying out, it is not a useful way to monitor trends and we do not recommend using it for exploring crime trends.

Police recorded crime is a good measurement of:

• Homicide
• Firearm / gun crimes
• Crimes involving a weapon

Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics.

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

The latest recorded crime figures relate to crimes recorded by the police during the year ending December 2017 (between January 2017 and December 2017).

In this release:

• “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

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) provides the best indication of the volume of fraud offences directly experienced by people. CSEW estimates cover a wide 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.

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 (Table E7, year ending March 2017).

Action Fraud recorded lower than normal monthly volumes of fraud offences between July 2015 and April 2016, following the company contracted to provide the call centre service going into administration6. Volumes have recovered but because the lower-volume months form part of the comparator year (year ending December 2016), the latest figure will have been influenced by this issue, albeit to a lesser extent than seen previously.

A comprehensive guide to crime types and definitions can be found in the ONS User Guide

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).