When people head off on holiday, the risk of falling victim to fraud increases. This is whether they are swiping their card or receiving emails that appear to be from their bank. To shed more light on the scale of convoluted theft schemes beyond just pickpocketing and tourist scams across the UK, a new report assessed a number of police reports about scams and the money lost to fraud in the past year in London and other UK regions.
To identify the regions and victim groups facing the greatest losses and fraud cases, the company BestBrokers analysed police-recorded fraud data covering England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland from 14 July 2024 to 14 July 2025, focusing on individual cases, total losses, losses per 1,000 residents, and victim demographics by age and gender.
Between 14 July 2024 and 14 July 2025, scammers across the UK stole £2.2 billion in various schemes, with 267,719 reports filed by local police forces. Among those, the costliest types of scams were investment fraud (£706.7 million in losses), consumer fraud (£505.9 million in losses), and banking fraud (£417.4 million).
That banking fraud consistently ranks among the top three categories in terms of total losses, despite being significantly underreported, highlights a growing vulnerability in the way we interact with modern financial systems.
Figures show that Londoners were scammed out of £298.6 million within these twelve months, with consumer fraud and the so-called advance fee fraud (whenever people are asked to pay upfront for goods or services that they never actually receive) being the most common types of fraud. These trends are represented in over 48,000 police reports.
The most common type of scam in London is consumer fraud, with more than 18.5 thousand police reports. This is a large group of crimes, ranging from online shopping schemes and pirated door-to-door sales to fake tickets to events and dating scams. Over the past twelve months, residents and visitors of the city lost £75 million to consumer fraud alone.
Investment fraud has also affected Londoners the most, causing losses of around £93 million, followed by consumer fraud (£75 million) and advance fee fraud (£21 million).
Another category of fraudulent criminal activities common in London is advance fee fraud, with 7 thousand police reports and £21 million stolen within the past year, followed by investment fraud with a little over 4 thousand reports filed by the Met Police and a staggering £93.4 million in losses. Another 3,200 banking fraud cases were reported in the same period, in which £19.2 million was stolen
Other scams that affected Londoners over the past year were courier fraud (355 police reports and £3.7 million in losses), corporate fraud (304 cases and £826 thousand in losses), and public sector fraud (25 reports and £1.2 million in losses).
Banking fraud, which is much more narrow, is among the worst scams, with a little over 3,000 reports filed in the past year by the Metropolitan Police and a little over £19 million stolen by scammers.
