Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many fraud offences involving online shopping have been recorded in each year since 2010.

The ONS publish the number of fraud offences recorded by Action Fraud in table A5 of their Crime in England and Wales publication (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/year-ending-december-2014/index.html). The total number of “online shopping and auctions” fraud offences recorded for the year ending December 2014 was 42,535.

Full annual data are only available from April 2014, following the phased introduction of centralised fraud reporting via Action Fraud. Previously, fraud offences were recorded by police forces and fraud offences involving online shopping could not be separately identified.