More than 45,000 people lost a total of £177.6m to impersonation scams last year, according to finance industry trade body UK Finance.

Impersonation crime occurs when a scammer contacts a potential victim pretending to be a trusted organisation such as a bank, the police, a delivery or utility company, or perhaps a financial provider, friend or family member.

The scams usually begin with a call, text, email or direct message with an urgent request for money or personal and financial information.

The research found that younger adults were particularly at risk of impersonation crime. Just 38% of 18-34 year olds always check a request for their money or information is genuine – the lowest of any age group.

Only 51% of people overall always check if a request for money or information is legitimate before responding.

The figures have been issued as part of UK Finance’s Take Five campaign launched this week which aims to highlight the dangers of the sophisticated fraud.

It’s one aspect of regulators’ and crime-fighters’ battle with a range of crooks attempting financial scams.

Earlier this month the FCA announced its first prosecution of scammers running two cloned financial firms.

It also outlined plans to reduce and prevent financial crime.

The FCA said its Consumer Hub prevented more than £7m being lost to fraudsters last year.

UK Finance said there were 45,367 cases of impersonation scams reported in 2022.

Katy Worobec, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance, said: “Anyone can be caught out by a scam in the heat of the moment and criminals are constantly adapting their tactics to appear legitimate. It has never been more important to take steps to check for genuine communication.”

Many banks have signed up to a voluntary code which helps blameless victims who have been tricked into transferring money to a fraudster to be reimbursed.

New financial regulations being considered by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) will require banks and building societies to fully reimburse victims of authorised push payment (APP) scams, where the loss is more than £100.

• OnePoll interviewed 2,000 UK adults in an online survey from 6 February to 7 February 2023.