Online shopping fraud is costing Londoners more than £8 million a year, which prompted the Met Police to run a campaign educating shoppers about some of the warning signs of online scammers and the messages.
A series of digital banner advertisements will appear on various websites, including big major online auction sites, as part of the police campaign. They will advise shoppers to consider fraud risks as they may be asked to make bank transfers outside of the safeguards of the official websites.
According to figures, revealed by the police, the total loss to victims in London from online shopping fraud was £8.3 million in the last financial year. Twenty-three percent of online fraud reports in London cited cases of mobile phones offered for sale, as revealed by 2017 figures.
"The purpose of this campaign is to educate online buyers about how to safely use the internet to shop. The most important piece of advice is not to be pressured into making a quick bank transfer for a special deal. It can always be tempting to pay a bargain price for items such as mobile phones or cars, but, you may end up paying money for a product that does not even exist," Detective Chief Inspector Gary Miles, of the Met's Operation Fraud and Linked Crime Online (Falcon), said in a statement.
Latest figures by National Fraud Intelligence Bureau reveal that men account for 61% of online fraud victims, with those aged between 31 and 40 most likely to get conned by fraudsters.
The anti-fraud campaign will run until the end of September and will be subject to review before its second phase expected to last till Christmas.