Santander’s Scamtracker Tool Shows Users Have Lost £18 Million to Fraud In Q1 2025
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According to Santander Bank, the first quarter of this year has already resulted in a loss of over £18 million to fraud.
The bank got this information from a Quarterly Scamtracker — a tool launched to keep abreast of emerging trends in fraud across its retail banking base.
Losing 18 million pounds in only three months shows that scammers are still highly active, and very successful. However, the figure also represents a 13% drop in the amount taken by fraudsters during Q4 2024. Despite the notable decrease, the bank has still spotted a series of new, concerning trends that have emerged lately.
The Most Dominant Trends Among Scammers
Some of the most concerning ones include impersonation scams, advance fee scams, and friendship/romance scams. These were pointed out as top-rising scams in Q1 2025, responsible for 3.5 million GBP stolen from customers.
It is also worth noting that the increase came despite Santander’s research, which revealed that more than half of the bank’s consumers are aware of friendship/romance scams (63%) and impersonation scams (49%).
On a quarter-to-quarter basis, the number of successful scams has gone down 17%, but despite this, the bank’s Scamtracker revealed that purchase scams are responsible for more than half of all claims in Q1. In other words, this one type of scam is as effective as the previously mentioned three types combined, also being responsible for £3.5 million stolen.
Gig ticket scams have been responsible for over 10% of purchase scams, which reveals that scammers prey on the demand among music fans, with Coldplay and Sabrina Carpenter events seeing the greatest amount of scammer activity.
The tool also revealed that claims values are largely down across the board on a quarter-to-quarter basis. However, impersonation scams of organizations that are not a bank or the police, like HMRC, saw the largest proportionate increase, being responsible for almost 14% (£1.2 million) of the total amount stolen. This represents an increase from 13% seen during Q4 2024.
