Britons were forced to shift their priorities over the last couple of years, as the pandemic led to businesses, consumers and criminals to focus on the online world more than ever. As coronavirus sped up the shift to an all-encompassing online world, a huge increase in cybercrime was seen.
Criminals take advantage of higher online activity
Action Fraud, Cifas, and UK Finance collectively received 822,276 fraud reports in 2019-20. Of which, 698,934 (85 percent) were online based scams.
The National Crime Agency also stated that, roughly, just 20 percent of scams are reported which highlighted the UK could be looking at a total figure of around 3,494,670 cases of cybercrime every year. In monetary terms, there was a £2.3billion reported loss, which means a possible total figure of around £11.5billion in just one year.
Based on growing trends and statistics, Holly Andrews, Managing Director at KIS Finance, predicted what the biggest online scams of 2022 will be.
For the coming year, Britons will need to keep an eye out for cryptocurrency, NHS vaccine, NHS Covid pass and Payment diversion scams.
READ MORE: Supermarket scam alert: Fraudsters are impersonating well known firms
Cryptocurrency investment scams
Cryptocurrency investment has ramped up in recent years as the price of certain digital assets skyrocketed. Namely, Bitcoin and Dogecoin both saw their prices rise rapidly in 2021. However, with these gains came the rising likelihood of fraud. According to Action Fraud,…
