LONDON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Over 500 million pounds (658 million U.S. dollars) was stolen from customers of British banks in the first half of 2018, figures showed Tuesday.
According to the data released by the industry group UK Finance, 145 million pounds of the stolen money was due to authorized push payment scams, in which people are conned into sending money to another account, while 358 million was lost to unauthorized fraud, which includes transactions made without account holders' knowledge.
Only 31 million pounds of the stolen money was returned to customers.
It showed that purchase scams, in which people are duped into paying for products or services that do not exist, were the most prevalent form of APP fraud reported in the first six months of 2018.
These scams often happen online, and examples include payments made for cars or holidays that are never delivered or provided.
There were also 3,866 reported cases of impersonation scams, in which criminals pretend to be from a financial institution or law enforcement, and trick account holders into transferring money.
Wes Streeting, a Labor member of the Commons treasury committee, called on banks to compensate the victims.
Experts from bank industry suggested customers check every request for personal or financial details when transferring money to avoid scam.
