For the first six months of the year alone scammers have stolen some 616 million pounds from bank account holders in the UK, of which 207,5 million pounds were lost in scams, where victims directly authorized payments to an account controlled by fraudsters. This represents a rise of 40% compared to the same period a year ago, the latest data of UK Finance reveals. The type of scams where victims directly authorize a payment are known as authorized push payment (APP) and includes cases where criminals hack into e-mail accounts, both corporate and personal to mislead people to transfer large sums.