Investment fraud growing

MORE than £1 billion is lost every year to scams targeting experienced investors, new figures show.

Investors risk losing tens of thousands of pounds because they’re not taking simple steps to check who they are dealing with, according to new research by Action Fraud.

The national fraud reporting centre said victims of investment fraud had handed over amounts between £10,000 and £1 million to fraudsters that had targeted them using details of fund and share ownership. Yet just 10 per cent of investment scams go unreported, it found. Almost half of male investors surveyed said they had given out their personal details without checking the credentials of the person contacting them.

Peter Wilson, director of the National Fraud Authority, said: ‘Some of the biggest personal fraud losses reported are from investors, a group that we think of as savvy and entrepreneurial.”