The Financial Ombudsman Service has released new data showing that complaints about fraud and scams are at record highs.

Between July and September this year, the Ombudsman received 73,692 overall complaints, significantly higher than the 46,716 cases it received over the same period last year.

The newly released figures reveal that fraud and scam cases have now reached their highest quarterly level, with consumers lodging 9,091 complaints over the three-month period, compared to the 6,264 lodged in the same quarter last year.

The FOS said that the rise in these complaints is partly due to the increasing complexity of the fraud and scam cases they now receive, with multi-stage frauds, where funds pass through several banks before reaching the fraudster, becoming more common.

This is particularly prevalent in cryptocurrency investment scams, as well as ‘safe account’ scams, where people are reportedly being cold called by fraudsters posing as trusted entities, such as their bank, and persuaded to transfer money to another account.

There are also increasing numbers of consumers submitting fraud and scam complaints about their e-money accounts.

Of the 2,196 e-money cases received by the Ombudsman this quarter, 1,607 of them related to fraud and scams, with many of these complaints involving the transfer of cryptocurrency, sometimes through multiple financial providers, before eventually reaching the fraudster.

The FOS said that in some of the cases, fraudsters were observed actively encouraging potential victims to open e-money accounts to then access their victim’s money as part of a scam.

“It’s concerning to see yet another rise in fraud and scams cases coming to our service,” said  Abby Thomas, chief executive and chief Ombudsman of the FOS.

“In recent years, as a result of our investigations into thousands of cases, more than £150m has been returned to those who have fallen victim to a scam.

“People can feel embarrassed to have fallen victim to a fraud or scam and may be reluctant to report the issue, but these crimes can be complex and incredibly convincing and nobody should be afraid to come forward.”

The Ombudsman’s new figures follow those released earlier this week by Cifas, the fraud prevention service, which revealed that £11.4 billion was lost over the past year in the UK thanks to scams.  

In a new report published in collaboration with the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, Cifas found that 15% of consumers had lost cash to criminals in 2024, up from 10% in 2023, with the average loss per victim being £1,400, and only 18% recovering all their money.

Worryingly, nearly three-quarters (71%) of consumers told Cifas that they did not report the crime, suggesting they may have been ashamed to do so, blamed themselves, or lacked the confidence that their complaint would be dealt with. 

In total, three in five respondents (60%), said their trust online had declined because of scams, and a similar number (61%) revealed they encounter scams at least once a month – in particular, through rogue text/SMS messages, or as shopping and investment scams via online platforms such as Gmail, WhatsApp, and Facebook.

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However, the research did find promising signs that the ability of consumers to spot danger signs is improving, with 71% confident in their ability to recognise if an offer seemed too good to be true.

“‘There has never been a greater need to protect people and shift the dial on the UK’s scams emergency,” said Mike Haley, CEO of Cifas.

“However, industry cannot do this alone. We need greater cross-sector collaboration and an ability to share data and intelligence from all industry sectors as well as government departments, law enforcement, and the public sector.” 

Under the previous government, a Fraud Strategy was introduced with the aim of reducing fraud by 10% on 2019 levels by utilising a new national fraud squad and deploying the UK intelligence community to pursue online fraudsters.    

Ahead of Black Friday, the heads of UK’s cyber and law enforcement agencies, including the National Cyber Security Centre, issued a warning about cyber-criminal scams and launched a national campaign to encourage people to turn on 2-step verification (2SV) to help protect their online accounts.