INSIGHTS – SPRING 2022
Authorised Push Payment Fraud – A Worrying Trend by EFT writer Bob C. 

Imagine investing your life savings or pension drawdown into a home extension. When the work is complete, a final invoice arrives by email from the building contractor, requesting payment immediately by bank transfer. 

You transfer the last £20K in your account to the builder with your thanks for their work. Worryingly, you hear nothing back. 

When you text them hours later to ask if they received the payment, the confused contractor explains they didn’t send an invoice and the account you transferred the money to isn’t theirs… 

Then you’ve just fallen victim to authorised push payment (APP) fraud, one of the fastest-growing scams in the UK that netted criminals some £353.3 million in the first half of 2021 alone – a 71% increase on the same period in 2020, according to a report by the UK Finance banking body. 

And for the first year ever in 2021, losses from APP fraud exceeded those from credit and debit card fraud (£261.7 million). 

On this website, we’ll take a look at some of the common tactics fraudsters use to scam ordinary people out of life-changing amounts of money. We’ll also look at some of the simple steps you can take to stay protected.