Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on how many occasions in (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21 and (c) 2021-22 individuals contacted Action Fraud to report that third parties had unsuccessfully tried to defraud them using advance fee payment or consumer retail scams; and whether those incidents were recorded as crimes.
The Home Office collects data on the number of fraud and computer misuse cases reported to Action Fraud that have been recorded as crimes by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB). Information on the number of reports of fraud that were not subsequently recorded as crimes is not held.
Action Fraud reports of fraud and computer misuse offence are published by the ONS quarterly in the Crime in England and Wales tables, which can be found at this link: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesappendixtables
Table A5 presents these offences by type of fraud committed.