UK consumers lose £10bn a year to scams

National Audit Office report questions why police aren’t doing more to tackle online fraud

Online coronavirus scam
(Image credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Fraudsters posing as Microsoft IT workers fleeced 34,500 Britons out of "hundreds of millions of pounds" before police announced their arrests this week.

Such scams cost UK consumers an estimated £10bn in 2016, says a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO). However, online fraud isn’t only a consumer problem - businesses are also estimated to have lost £144bn.

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