New research carried out by consumer group Which? has found that scam victims in the UK suffer a hit to their well-being worth up to £9.3bn a year.

The organisation launched their survey due to the concerns that the full impact of all scams on victims has been “seriously underestimated”.

Research found that “there is no such thing as a ‘victimless crime’ when it comes to fraud”. What follows a is lower life satisfaction, comparable with being threatened or targeted by thieves, data suggested.

According to Which? the estimated average drop in well-being is the equivalent of more than £2,500 per year, which is estimated to be at an even higher £3,684 for online fraud.

This well-being impact is substantially more than the average financial sum lost to fraud, that Which? claimed is around £600.

Currently, attention in terms of well-being of victims has centred on the most serious financial losses, neglecting those that fall victim to smaller financial crimes.

Which? analysed more than 17,000 responses to the Office for National Statistics’ Crime Survey establish the well-being impact associated with being scammed.

Results were then applied to an approach to assessing social impacts approved by the Treasury earlier this year.

Calculations that apply to the millions fraud of incidents between 2019-20 suggest a total loss of well-being associated with being a victim of fraud of more than £9bn per year.

Commenting on the stats, Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy said: “Our research shows that scam victims suffer a significant drop in well-being when they are targeted by criminals. This brings home the scale of the emotional and psychological harm that victims suffer when they are defrauded.

“The government must not ignore the huge impact an epidemic of fraud is having on our society. Scam adverts must be included in the Online Safety Bill and ministers must set out plans for laws and regulations that will make online platforms use their highly sophisticated technology to effectively tackle harmful content on their sites.”

Which? said that current UK government plans to tackle online scams are “not comprehensive enough” to deal with the threats faced by consumers and “do not reflect the scale and urgency of the problem”.

The watchdog said that the government should begin including scam adverts in its announced Online Safety Bill as the “first step” towards ensuring new laws and regulations make online platforms take responsibility for consumer harms.

Steven Peake, Pre-Sales Manager, UK&I, Barracuda Networks, said: “The cyber-attack landscape has altered drastically over the last few years, and many end users have struggled to keep pace with the constantly evolving cyber threats facing them.

“In today’s digital climate, scammers are most likely to target victims where they see most value, this regularly includes employees for businesses that manage large quantities of sensitive data or access to a source of finance.

“Ransomware and spear-phishing are two primary cyber-attack forms that have surged since the advent of Covid-19 and long-term remote working – our recent data even revealed that ransomware attacks have increased by 64% in the last year alone – and fraudsters can spend hours selecting a victim, constructing a method for attack and approaching them with communication methods usually including email or SMS, hence the rising success rate for highly-targeted cyber-attacks.”

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Which? data also found that fraud victims get left with significantly higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of happiness, and in some cases, of negative general health.

UK Finance found that, in first half of this year, consumers lost more than £100m to investment fraud. This is an increase of 95% as fraudsters have matched their tactics towards online shopping during the pandemic.

Peake continued: “Cyber attackers are often called ‘faceless’ criminals, but the victims they impact are by no means faceless, and the toll, in terms of financial or data loss and mental damages, can be drastic.

“This is why it’s essential for businesses to reinvest in their cyber training, so that staffers are aware of the different attack forms facing them.

“What’s more, acquiring a third-party data backup solution is imperative to ensuring that a breach of data does not necessarily equate to monetary loss.”

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