In the last financial year, the Financial Ombudsman Service received 21,918 fraud and scam complaints, up by almost a fifth when compared to the 18,450 complaints it received in 2021.

Around half of the latest fraud complaints (10,985) were about APP scams, an increase of 17% from the 9,370 APP scams received in the previous year.

In an APP scam, a criminal will trick their victim into sending money directly from their account to an account which the criminal controls.

Losses due to APP scams were £583.2m in 2021, according to a report by UK Finance. This was split between personal (£505.8m) and non-personal or business (£77.4m).

Over a third of the APP scam complaints were about investment scams, up from a quarter in 2021/22. The majority of these complaints included an element of cryptocurrency.