The facts and figures about scams in the UK listed on this page come from research published by the Office of Fair Trading in December 2006. The study, called 'Research on impact of mass marketed scams' looked at unsolicited mailings, phone calls and e-mails.

• An estimated 3.2 million adults in the UK fall victim to a scam every year.
• UK consumers loose an estimated £3.5 billion to scams each year. This equates to about £70 per annum for each adult living in the UK.
• The mean amount lost per scam is £850, with a median of £47. In other words, the distribution of losses is very skewed – a relatively small number of people lose very large amounts of money to scams.
• 23.5 million people (48 per cent of the UK adult population) is likely to have been targeted by a scam.
• 3.9 million people (eight per cent of the adult population) have been a victim of a scam at some time. This is likely to under-estimate the overall occurrence of scams because victims often fall for more than one scam and because people may either not recognise that they have been scammed, or be too embarrassed to admit to it.
• On average, a victim has a 30 per cent chance of falling for another scam within the following 12 months. Often this is because their details are added to a so-called 'suckers list' and they are further targeted by scam artists.
• Elderly people are more likely to be targeted by a scam than any other group. Almost half of the people that are targeted are older than 55.
• There is no evidence to suggest that older people are more likely to be victims. In fact, victims are most common amongst the 35 to 44 age bracket. However, the mean amount lost per scam is higher for older victims.
• Men and women are equally likely to be victims of scams although the incidence does vary by specific scam. Women are worst affected by miracle health scams (71 per cent of victims), clairvoyant mailing scams (70 per cent of victims) and career opportunity scams (63 per cent of victims). Men are much more affected by high risk investment scams (72 per cent of victims), property investor scams (68 per cent of victims), African advance fee scams (65 per cent of victims) and Internet dialer scams (63 per cent of victims).
• Fewer than five per cent of people report scams to the authorities.

The full Office of Fair Trading report can be read here (PDF, 303Kb).