Tech-savvy millennials lose over £2,500 EACH on bank scams
Millennials are increasingly falling victim to scams involving handing money to fraudsters, according to Lloyds Bank.
New data shows that victims aged 18 to 34 are losing £2,630 on average to the fraud, which typically involve scammers impersonating banking staff, the police or HM Revenues and Customs.
People over 55 are still handing over the most amount of money out of any age group – with £10,716 in the pockets of the fraudsters per scam on average – but saw a slowdown in the number of total scams.
Despite losing less money when scammed, more millennials have lost out financially, with the number of them being duped rising almost four-fold.
There are more than three times as many people aged between 45 and 54 being scammed out of money than those over 55, according to the new figures.
Lloyds revealed that people in this age group are being tricked out of an average of £3,573 per fraud.
Younger people are thought to be duped at a much faster rate than their peers because of their prevalence in using online banking, which has increasingly been utilised by scammers.
Greater awareness among older people is also thought to have driven fraudsters to new groups and tactics.
Paul Davis, retail fraud director at Lloyds Bank, said:
“Helping to keep our customers’ money safe is our number one priority – being a victim of fraud can have devastating effects not just on people’s finances but also their lives.
“While we are working 24/7 behind the scenes to protect customers and millions of pounds have been frozen, every day fraudsters are trying to trick people into handing over their personal information like a PIN or password or transferring cash.”
David Emm, principal security research at Kaspersky added: “This story is slightly ironic, given that recent research by Kaspersky revealed that younger generations are often called upon to lend tech assistance to their older loved ones. This shows that whilst younger internet users may be tech-savvy, this doesn’t mean they’re knowledgeable about cyber-security. These findings are not that surprising, however, as people over 50 are likely to be more worldly, and adopt a greater sense of caution.
“They are generally more selective as to what they go online for, whereas younger people have grown up with tech, and are happy to use the Internet in nearly every aspect of their lives. This of course means that a young person’s potential attack surface is a lot wider than someone who may be older. However, it is important to note that people of all ages are vulnerable to scams. It is crucial to adopt the same sense of caution when we are online as we do in the real world.”
