The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) saw a 66% increase in fraud and scam complaints in the first quarter of the 2021/22 financial year.
The body revealed that complaints had increased to 5,025 cases compared with 3,028 in the same period during the previous year.
Over that period, 60% of fraud and scam complaints were upheld by the FOS, compared with 50% the previous year.
The FOS said these findings suggested that banks and other financial institutions still needed to do more to resolve complaints from their customers fairly before people were forced to seek help from it.
Fraud and scam complaints
The data indicates fraud and scam complaints continue to be one of the main drivers of complaints to the FOS.
Cases include: problems caused by fraudsters posing as a customer’s bank and convincing them to move their money to a fake ‘safe account’; consumers being scammed by paying for goods via a bank transfer but not subsequently receiving what they paid for.
The FOS also revealed it had seen an increase in complaints about cryptocurrencies during the pandemic.
Overall, the FOS received 50,906 complaints about financial businesses in the first quarter of the financial year.
Current accounts most complained about
The data also showed that for the first time in over a decade, current accounts were the most complained about product, with consumers bringing 6,911 complaints to the service.
This was up 55% on the same period last year, when the ombudsman service received 4,466 complaints about current accounts.
Fraud and scams accounted for around half of the current account complaints that the service received in the first three months of this financial year.
Credit cards (4,039 complaints received in April-June 2021) and car and motorcycle insurance (2,427 complaints received in April-June 2021) were the other top three most complained about products.
Commenting on the data, FOS interim chief executive and chief ombudsman Nausicaa Delfas said: “It’s a real concern that we are seeing such an increase in scams. It’s vital that people take extra care with their finances, as unfortunately fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
“If people feel they have not been treated fairly by their banks, we are here to help.”