Surrey residents and businesses are more likely to fall foul of investment fraud than anywhere else in the UK, research by consumer group Which? has revealed.
Just over two in 10,000 people in Surrey have reported financial investment fraud to Action Fraud data provided to Which? following a Freedom of Information Act request.
In total 264,204 frauds were reported to Action fraud in 2016, a 10.7 per cent increase on the previous year’s total.
Frauds were not limited to investment related crimes, also taking in computer-fixing fraud, where scammers contact individuals and companies offering to fix an often non-existent computer problem via remote access only to demand high sums before releasing the machine. This particular fraud is most prevalent in Dyfed-Powys where more than 19 in 10,000 people reported the issue to Action Fraud.
Cheque, plastic card and online banking fraud was another relatively large-scale fraud, with 7.6 cases per 10,000 reported.
Which? warns the true scale of fraud could be far higher as many of these crimes go unreported, pointing to an Office for National Statistics survey that suggests there could be in excess of 5 million instances of fraud and computer misuse per year.
Gareth Shaw, money expert at Which?, said: "This research highlights how reported fraud in the UK is on the increase and the kinds of scams you are most likely to fall victim to will depend on where you live.
"These criminals are constantly finding new ways to rip us off and those tackling fraud should be upping their game. The government needs to set out an ambitious agenda to tackle fraud, while law enforcement agencies need to be working harder to identify and protect the people most at risk from fraud."
