Taylor Swift and Olympics Ticket Scams Fuel Scams in 2024

Fake Olympics and Taylor Swift tickets are the two biggest online scams consumers are likely to encounter this year, UK Finance has warned.

The warning came as the banking lobby group reported that the number of people defrauded by romance and shopping scams jumped to new highs last year.

Overall, criminals stole £1.17bn in 2023, down 4% on 2022, according to the group’s annual fraud report.

But UK Finance said abuse of online platforms continues to leave people vulnerable. He urged tech companies to do more to help stop fraud.

Consumers lost £86m last year to buying scams in which they agreed to pay for something that never happened, UK Finance said.

This was 28% more than in 2022. In total, there were more than 156,000 cases of such fraud last year.

“Every year we see a cycle of fraud that changes over the course of the year,” said Ben Donaldson, executive director of economic crime at UK Finance.

“The Olympics and Taylor Swift are the two biggest examples this year.”

More than 600 bank customers reported losing money.

UK Finance said fraudsters often convinced victims to pay for goods by bank transfer instead of on the official website.

“Tickets for big events such as the Olympics, Euro 2024, Glastonbury or Taylor Swift sell out quickly and people often look online for better deals so they don’t miss out.

“Criminals will use this as an opportunity to try and get you to buy tickets that are either fraudulent or don’t exist,” warned Andy McDonald of UK Finance.

UK Finance’s annual report found some progress in the fight against fraud, which is the UK’s most common crime and has increased during the pandemic.

It said the total number of cases fell by 1% to around 2.97 million from 2022, with the vast majority being credit card fraud.

The report found that losses due to unauthorized transactions fell by 3% to £708.7m last year, which it said was due to improved customer verification procedures.

UK Finance said there was also less money lost due to fraud where payments were authorised.

These losses fell by 5% to £459.7m as cases involving criminals posing as banks or the police fell sharply.

However, the number of victims and money stolen in romance scams, in which people are tricked into believing they are in a relationship, hit a record last year, according to the report.

Losses in these cases rose by 17% to £36m and included an average of 10 payments per case.

This loss is double the amount reported for the same type of fraud in 2020.

“Stolen money funds serious organized crime and victims often suffer emotional harm because fraud is a pernicious and manipulative crime,” Donaldson said.

The new regulations are due to come into force on 7 October this year, which will mean payment service providers in the UK must reimburse customers who fall victim to payment fraud. But there are exceptions to this rule.

UK Finance said the change added urgency to the fight against fraud.

“As the reimbursement rules change, we risk even more money falling into the hands of criminals unless the technology and telecoms sectors take action. [proper] measures to stop fraud proliferating on their platforms and networks,” Donaldson said.