Email most Common Scam Vector: British Office of Fair Trading (OFT) Reports that Scams Affect One Out of Ten Britons

Must be "scams on the rise" day here at the email security blog. Moments after my previous post on rises in phishing and vishing, one of my colleagues alerted me to a BBC story (see "Scams Affect One in 10 Britons, Says OFT") with some interesting statistics about how often consumers are victimized by scams.

Britain's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) issued some new statistics about scams as part of their annual "Scams Awareness Month" campaign for 2010. New research by the OFT reveals that mass-marketed scams that "mislead people to part with their cash" and may arrive by regular postal mail, text message, telephone or online (e.g., email and web) vectors have affected nearly 10% of British citizens.

Among the OFT report's findings:

• Email is now the most common scam approach: 73% of British adults have received a scam email in the past year. This is followed by scams via a letter (21%) and via text message (12%).
• Social media sites appear to be emerging as a new route for scammers: 9% of adults received an approach this way.
• Being victimized by a scam is not rare: Around one in 11 (just over 4 million) British adults say they have responded to a scam at some time in their life, of whom nearly a third lost money. And about 4% of Britons (1 in 25 or 2 million people) have responded to a scam in just the last 12 months.
• Losses from scams are substantial: Around half (49%) of those scammed have lost more than £50 (about $80) in total, with 5% losing more than £5000 (about $8000).

You can find the OFT's original press release at the following link:

OFT Launches "Scamnesty" as New Figures Reveal Scale of Problem and Rise of Online Scams
http://www.oft.gov.uk/news/press/2010/07-10

Just as we've done here on numerous occasions, the Office of Fair Trade issued a good list of tips for avoiding being victimized by a scam. Says the press release:

To help protect yourself and those you care about, the OFT is encouraging people to remember the following tips:

• Stop, think and be sceptical. If something sounds too good to be true it probably is.   
• Do not be rushed into sending off money to someone you do not know, however plausible they might sound and even where an approach is personalised. 
• Ask yourself how likely it is that you have been especially chosen for this offer - thousands of other people will probably have received the same offer.
• Think about how much money you could lose from replying to a potential scam - it's not a gamble worth taking.

For Proofpoint's own tips on staying safe from online scams, see our latest such press release with seven simple rules for staying safe online.