Online shopping scams and cyber fraud

Release date:
18 May 2021

You asked

​Could you please supply me with the statistics/information concerning how many people have contacted you regarding online shopping scams/cyber fraud in the last couple of years?

  1. How many people have been victims of online shopping scams or cyber fraud in the last year - March 2020-March 2021?
  2. How many people have been victims of shopping scams or cyber fraud in March 2019 - March 2020?
  3. How many people have been victims of online shopping scams or cyber fraud in March 2018 - March 2019?
  4. Can you also provide me with statistics of the most prominent sites that these scams happened on?
  5. Could I also be provided with a statistic showing the ages and genders of people that are mostly victims of this crime?

This could be provided as specific numbers or percentages.

We said

Thank you for your request.

We do not hold all the information you are requesting; however, we hope you find the following information helpful.

There are two principal sources of data currently used in the official statistics on fraud and computer misuse. The first is estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), a household victimisation survey. The second is incidents referred to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) by Action Fraud (the national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre) as well as two industry bodies, Cifas and UK Finance, which report instances of fraud where their member organisations have been a victim.

Appendix table A5 provides computer misuse data from Action Fraud and the NFIB. This table also includes a breakdown for 'Online shopping and auctions' under 'Consumer and retail fraud'. The year ending March 2020 dataset would be most helpful to you as this details comparisons with the year ending March 2019. Appendix tables F5 and F6 details estimates from the CSEW for the year ending March 2019 and 2020 respectively.

Data on personal and household characteristics of victims of computer misuse from the CSEW can be found in the property crime tables; in particular, appendix tables 10 to 13 would be most helpful to you.

If you have any crime-related queries in the future, you can email crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk.

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