This policing statistic lays bare huge fight against fraud we have on our hands

Before my election to Parliament in July, I spent more than a decade working across a number of , combatting financial crime and corruption. But it's only since becoming an MP that I've fully understood the devastating effects of fraud. Every week I read horror stories about pensioners being conned out of their life savings, and vulnerable people - young and old - tricked by twisted romance scams and .

Even just buying a ticket for a football match or gig these days is fraught with danger, as scammers pounce on any opportunity to con us out of our hard-earned money. But this crisis goes well . Victims are often emotionally and psychologically scarred, embarrassed and isolated - having been manipulated by sophisticated gangs. And, as a tool of organised crime, fraud goes hand-in-hand with all manner of other evils, from drug dealing to knife crime - contributing to violence and exploitation up and down the country.

In the first six months of last year, fraudsters stole more than half a billion pounds. Yet research from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Banking suggests the true scale of the most common form of - so-called automated push payment (APP) scams, where victims are manipulated into making real-time payments to fraudsters, often involving impersonation - is vastly underestimated by the banking industry.

While banks and regulators currently put the annual cost of APP our report suggests the actual figure could be as high as £3billion - nearly eight times greater than acknowledged. This underreporting reflects a growing gap in understanding the full extent of the problem and its devastating impact on ordinary consumers.

The report's findings also suggest we are failing to detect and prevent fraud swiftly enough, allowing scammers to repeatedly exploit their victims, who may be passed between criminal groups or have their personal details sold on.

In 2020, the average victim of APP fraud made 1.6 payments to fraudsters per case. By 2024, that figure had risen to 1.8 - a 16% increase, according to analysis by UK Finance. The vast majority of APP fraud originates online. Four out of 10 scams now involve platforms owned by Meta - including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp - with scammers exploiting the vast reach and anonymity offered by the likes of Facebook Marketplace.

Despite playing a central role in the spread of fraud, social media companies have consistently failed to take adequate responsibility for preventing these crimes. We believe it's high time they got a grip. So what is to be done?

In our 2024 manifesto, the prioritised a new fraud strategy to cope with the increasingly complex tactics used by fraudsters. That's vital because - as a nation - we're not keeping up with the ways scammers seek to deceive us. Fraud is now the most common crime in the UK, making up 40% of reported incidents. And that's just what we know about. The true scale is likely to be far, far greater. All the while, just 1% of police resources are dedicated to tackling it.

This imbalance needs to be put right, and quickly. Since last year's election, we've already seen welcome crackdowns on benefit fraud and the appointment of a Covid Counter-Fraud Commissioner to try and claw back some of the dodgy PPE contracts awarded during the pandemic.

And, crucially, both the Security and the Fraud Ministers have been crystal clear on the role that they expect tech companies to play in tackling organised scammers. But, given the scale of the issue, we do need to go further and faster.

My party has quite rightly spoken about making our streets safer with more bobbies on the beat, faster sentencing for wrongdoers and a crackdown on . But we also need to be better at protecting people in their homes, on their phones and laptops, who are being ripped off on an industrial scale.

To do this we must work together with industry to close the loopholes that allow fraud to flourish, demand accountability from tech giants and ensure that law enforcement has the resources needed to fight this growing threat. Only then will Britain's fraud epidemic come to an end.

Phil Brickell spent a decade working in the financial services industry before becoming MP for Bolton West