Wire fraud
Being deceived into a bank transfer — fast to send and very hard to reverse.
Wire fraud is a broad term for any scheme that uses electronic communication — email, phone, messaging or banking networks — to trick someone into transferring money. In everyday UK use it usually means being deceived into making a bank transfer to a fraudster, and its danger lies in the mechanics: a transfer moves cash directly from your account to theirs with nothing held in between, so it is fast and very hard to reverse once sent.
This is why scammers work so hard to steer victims towards transfers and away from cards. A prominent form is authorised push payment fraud, where you are manipulated into sending the money yourself — through a fake invoice, a bank impersonator urging a move to a 'safe account', or a purchase that never ships. From October 2024, a mandatory reimbursement scheme has required UK banks to refund many victims of this fraud, though each claim is assessed on its own facts and is never as clean as not being caught out. If you have already sent a transfer to a fraudster, contact your bank without delay; our step-by-step recovery guide covers the order to work through.