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What is APP Fraud?

An Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud occurs when a fraudster coerces someone into sending a payment to them.

Examples of common types of APP frauds include romance scams, this is where an individual is persuaded to make payments to someone they have met, often online through social media or dating websites and believe they are in a relationship with them. Another example is where a fraudster contacts an individual claiming to be from the police and persuades them to make a payment which ends up going to the fraudster – often claiming the money is at risk of being stolen if they don’t make the payment urgently.

The Global Anti-Scam Alliance state that over $1trillion is lost to scams annually. The impact of APP fraud is not just financial, however, as it can have a significant impact on the victim’s mental or physical wellbeing. Victims report detrimental impacts on how they feel about themselves, can experience periods of depression and anxiety or have trouble sleeping. It can also damage the trust the individual has in managing their own financial affairs, including using online services.

We now live in a world where the technology exists for fraudsters to create ever more believable scams, making it more and more difficult for people to tell the genuine from the fake. Banks and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) seek to help prevent their customers from falling prey to these crimes.

What does APP Victim Check do?

Banks and PSPs have enhanced protective measures to safeguard their customers who they know have been victims of APP fraud, to help prevent them from becoming a victim again. APP Victim Check allows participating banks and PSPs to share awareness of APP victims with each other to prevent further APP fraud affecting their customers.

This means if you fall victim to APP fraud, your bank or PSP will record your details to APP Victim Check and this will be made available to other Bank or PSPs where you hold an account or that you are sending money to. This information will not be seen by any bank or PSP where you are not a customer or transferring your money. Preventing further cases of APP fraud not only saves the individual from the harmful effects of being a victim of crime, but it also prevents the proceeds of these crimes from falling into criminal hands.

How does it help you?

If you have been a victim of an APP fraud then this service will allow all your banks or payment service providers to know this and better protect you from APP fraud in the future.
This protection could be through a number of different ways, which may include:

• Proactively sending you information about the latest scams and how to identify them;
• Routing your calls to more specialist call handlers if you contact them;
• Providing you with clearer, more specific warnings if you are about to make a payment that appears to pose a higher risk of APP fraud.

What does it mean for you?

You may find you receive more frequent contact relating to scams and fraud prevention and you may find that for some of your payments, particularly those to new payees, you are asked to take a moment to think about how confident you are that the payment you are about to make is genuine. In rare circumstances where a payment you are making appears to be highly risky then your bank or PSP may contact you to talk to you about their concerns. This information will not affect your credit score and will not be used by any organisation in a decision to allow you to open an account with them. Neither will it be used in any decision to close an account.

Who runs APP Victim Check and is my data secure?

APP Victim Check is run by Cifas.

We are a not-for-profit membership organisation that brings different sectors together for the common goal of eliminating fraud and financial crime. For over 35 years we have provided a secure, legal and effective framework for the real time sharing of high grade fraud risk data and intelligence, to reduce our member organisations (and their customers’) exposure to fraud and financial crime.

We manage the largest databases of fraud risk, dishonest conduct and victim protection data in the country – these databases are the National Fraud Database, the Insider Threat Database and APP Victim Check.
Cifas holds ISO27001 certification, which is the international standard for information security, so you can be confident your data is held securely.

Your data is also only held for as long as is considered necessary to protect you from further fraud and scam attempts, based on the type of fraud you have been subjected to and the combined experience of counter fraud professionals who work with victims of APP fraud.

Your rights

You are entitled to ask Cifas what data they hold about you. You can do this by submitting a Data Subject Access Request to Cifas. This is free of charge and Cifas is obliged to respond within one calendar month of receiving a fully completed form and supporting documentation.

If you disagree with the data held on you, or wish to be removed from APP Victim Check, in the first instances you should contact the bank or PSP that recorded the information. You should clearly indicate what is incorrect or that you wish to be removed. Please be aware that while you can ask to be removed, your bank or PSP is not obliged to grant this request. They will assess your case.

If you have asked to be removed, your bank or PSP will consider whether they have reason to believe you are at a substantial risk of becoming a victim again. If they find this to be the case, they may refuse your request to be deleted. If you disagree with this, you are entitled to refer your case to Cifas to review. In order to do this, you must first have submitted a Data Subject Access Request and received a final response letter from the bank or PSP before contacting Cifas to raise a complaint using our Complaints Form.

Before you make any request to be deleted from the APP Victim Check scheme, we ask that you consider the increasing sophistication of the scams which you may be subjected to and the harm caused by falling prey to such scams.Please help your bank or PSP help you stay safe from APP fraud.

Which organisations use APP Victim Check

You can see a full list of organisations who participate in APP Victim Check here –App Victim Check | Cifas