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Online Fraud

The Eye on Wales team hears from two victims of fraud. One woman was duped into taking out 拢17,000 in loans for a man who faked his face in video calls by using computer graphics.

The scale of online and phone fraud is huge, accounting for one-in-three crimes, yet just two per cent of them reach court.

Fraudsters often target their victim carefully and use sophisticated and well-practised tricks to dupe people into trusting them.

Eye on Wales hears from a retired teacher who lost her life savings to man who spoofed her bank鈥檚 number on her mobile phone.

And presenter Oliver Hides talks to a woman who is reeling after she discovered the man she fell for when dating online was using computer graphics to fake his face during their long video calls, but only after she had taken loans worth 拢17,000 - and borrowed 拢10,000 from a friend - to help him out of a range of troubles around the world.

A senior police officer estimates 1,000 people a week could be victims in his force area and says fraudsters are sharing so-called suckers鈥 lists to target vulnerable people repeatedly.

But a professor of cyber security tells the programme the problem on online and phone fraud stems from a failure of regulation with banks not being better held to account for making money 鈥渆asy to steal鈥.

A list of organisations that can provide help and support with online fraud is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.

28 minutes

Last on

Sun 16 Feb 2020 18:32

Broadcasts

  • Wed 12 Feb 2020 18:30
  • Thu 13 Feb 2020 05:30
  • Sun 16 Feb 2020 18:32

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