More than £200 million in investment fraud was pilfered by scammers

Because AI makes it easier for scammers to target you, investment scams have increased by 40% since the previous year

Here are some precautions you can take.

In 2025, about £221.5 million was pilfered through investment fraud, as con artists target investors.

According to trade group UK Finance, British citizens unintentionally gave fraudsters a staggering 1.3 billion in 2025, up 4% from 2024.

Investment fraud accounted for slightly less than half of all authorized push payment (APP) fraud losses. This type of fraud involves criminals using online platforms to trick victims into authorizing payments themselves.

According to UK Finance, the great majority (66 percent) of all APP fraud, including investment fraud, starts online because con artists can more easily cast a wide net to draw victims with get rich quick schemes.

Watch the complete video here: Purchase scams, which account for 71% of all APP fraud, are another type of increasingly common fraud. In these scams, the victim pays in advance for goods that are never delivered. In 2025, losses in this category increased by 20% to 118.1 million.

In 2025, the amount stolen through romance fraudin which victims are tricked into paying someone they have never met but think they are in a relationship withrose by 22% to 39.2 million.

"Fraud operates on an industrial scale, harming people, businesses, and the UK economy, typically funding serious and organized crime in the UK and globally," stated Ruth Ray, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance.

"The financial industry makes significant investments to safeguard clients, but we cannot be the sole defender. Last year, nearly £1.3 billion was stolen once more, and it is obvious that we are not doing enough to address the root cause of the issue.

Ray demanded that online tech companies have "stronger, enforceable responsibilities" in order to immediately prevent criminals from making money off of fraud.

Investment scams are becoming more common thanks to AI.

Scammers now find it easier than ever to commit fraud thanks to the proliferation of AI-generated photos and videos, many of which mimic well-known financial figures to appear credible. Investor Steven Bartlett's likeness was used by scammers to entice gullible people last year, according to BFIA.

Since then, similar frauds using the images of Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, and others have been discovered.

AI is making dealing with fraud more challenging, according to a survey of experts in financial crime prevention and fraud management.

Because deepfakes are getting harder to identify, about 84% of participants in the BioCatch survey claimed that AI has made fraud and scam schemes more sophisticated.

"Agentic AI is making fraud faster, more scalable, and harder to detect," stated Jonathan Frost, director of global advisory for EMEA at BioCatch. AI will unavoidably be used by criminals, which could result in an exponential rise in fraud."

How to avoid being duped.

There are things you can do to safeguard yourself in light of the growing prevalence of fraud. Among them are the following.

You should always verify the legitimacy of any organization before providing them with your personal information. This contains your name, address, phone number, email address, and bank account information. Make sure the antivirus software on your personal devices is up to date so that any malware that targets you can be stopped before it causes serious harm. Keep an eye out for phishing attempts, in which con artists send emails, texts, or phone calls posing as a company or person they are not. They frequently attempt to obtain passwords or personal information from you. Grammatical mistakes, urgent language, and dubious-sounding email addresses or phone numbers are typical indicators of a phishing message. Get in touch with your bank right away if you believe you have been the victim of fraud. Additionally, you ought to notify Action Fraud about the crime.

You should also keep in mind the number 159, which you can call if you receive a suspicious call, in order to avoid becoming a victim. It will take you to your bank so they can verify the caller's legitimacy.