Dating Scams Rife In Norfolk, While Cyber Fraud Rises In The UK

Norfolk is rampant with dating scams, West and mid-Wales is awash with computer cons, and Surrey is slathered with investment fraud.

That’s according to data from Action Fraud, the UK cyber-crime centre collated by consumer watchdog Which? through a Freedom of Information request.

The watchdog created a map out of the data to display where the 264,204 counts of cyber fraud had taken place and in what form.

Spotting scams

More than 8,000 counts of dating fraud were reported to have occurred in Norfolk, making it a hotspot for such romance and lust-driven scams.

Online shopping and auction scams were found to have hit Northamptonshire the most, with 21.6 victims per 10,000; the national average sits at 16.9.

Cold callers computer scammers were found to have the most success in tricking people to part with their money in the Dyfed-Powys region of Wales by fooling people into thinking they have a problem with their computer when they do not.

Surrey is the hotspot for financial investment scams in the UK, likely down to it being an affluent area.

Unsurprisingly, given that it is Britain’s largest city and contains most of the UK’s wealth, London contained the most reported incidences of cyber scams.

Overall, fraud has increased in the UK by ten percent, with Which? encouraging the government to take action to tackle.

“As more information is available about us online than ever before, fraudsters are finding it much easier to know who to target and how,” said Gareth Shaw, a money expert at Which?

“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.”

With ransomware attacks hitting public sector organisations, Britain being riddled with malware, and a lot of effort needed to secure legacy systems, the UK has plenty of work to do to secure its cyber shores.

Quiz: What do you know about cyber security in 2017?