Young Brits report far more bank account hijackings than older adults

Fraud is often treated as a problem for older people. A new survey from fraud-prevention firm Outseer points the other way. In the UK, 21.0% of people aged 18 to 24 said they had personally had a bank account taken over. For people 65 and over, the figure was 2.1%.

What the survey found

Account takeover means a criminal gets into your account and uses it. When people also counted cases that hit someone close to them, the numbers rose to 39.0% for 18 to 24 year olds and 3.8% for those 65 and over.

• QR-code and payment-link scams: 44.8% of 18 to 24s, against 4.3% of over-65s.
• Romance scams: 55.2% against 10.3%.
• Across several fraud types, the UK age gap was wider than in the six other countries surveyed.

These two scam figures include what happened to family and friends, not only the person answering. The survey covered 7,029 people in seven countries, including 1,005 UK adults. It was run online in August 2026.

Bank messages miss the mark

The younger group is also the least moved by common bank reassurance. Only 5.7% of UK 18 to 24s picked "we are constantly monitoring for threats to your account" as the message that appealed most. Among over-65s, 28.6% did. Younger people preferred "we stop fraud before it reaches you", chosen by 36.2%.

Trust, switching and checkout

Fraud protection mattered most when UK consumers chose a bank or card provider. 60.4% put it in their top three factors. A third (33.1%) said a fraud or scam experience had lowered their trust in their provider. Among 18 to 24s, that rose to 42.9%. And 33.7% said they would move some or all of their money if their bank failed to protect them.

Security checks can also cost sales. Nearly two thirds (63.7%) of UK respondents had given up on an online checkout because checks were too slow or confusing. Among 18 to 24s, it was 81.9%. Yet 76.9% reacted well to their bank using background technology to confirm it was really them paying.

What Outseer suggests

Outseer's Chief Technology Officer, Yogesh Patel, said older customers clearly need fraud education, but younger people need support too. The company proposes that banks do more risk checking out of sight, using signals such as how a person behaves, their device and the payment itself. Extra checks would appear only when the risk is high enough.

What to do

Treat scam warnings as something for the whole family and every employee, not only older relatives. Talk to younger people about payment-link, QR-code and romance scams. Make sure their accounts have the same safeguards. Keep in mind that these are self-reported answers, and the survey came from a company that sells fraud-prevention approaches.