By Mark Burton
Fraud in the UK’s platform economy has become a constant, year-round threat rather than a seasonal spike, as cyber-enabled, AI-driven scams spread across e-commerce, fintech and travel. As such, businesses must embed continuous, intelligent fraud prevention into their core operations instead of relying on short-term defences.
The UK’s platform economy has matured. Marketplaces, travel apps, fintech tools and gaming ecosystems are now embedded in everyday life, and that makes them a constant target. Fraud once seemed like a seasonal challenge, with criminals circling around Christmas shopping or Black Friday sales. That’s no longer the case now.
Industry data indicates that UK consumers in the first half of 2025 have already lost £629.3 million to fraud and scams. This represents a 3% increase in losses and a 17% increase in cases relative to the first half of 2024. This continued increase signals that fraud is no longer a seasonal or reactive challenge, it has become persistent, opportunistic, and embedded into everyday platform activity.
For the UK platform economy, this marks a structural shift in how fraud now moves in rhythm with business activity, not the retail calendar, demanding continuous vigilance and built-in resilience from every operator.
Evolving fraud patterns across sectors
With the rise of AI and automation improvement tools, fraudsters methods have evolved to become faster, more adaptive and harder to detect. Many are using tools such as VPNs, proxies to hide their network or location details while bots, and click farms, help them to automate their activities on a larger scale and get away with fraud. This increase in fraudulent activity is also not pinned down to one specific sector as it spans across many including e-commerce, fintech and travel.
E-commerce platforms in particular face relentless background activity from automated bots and credential stuffing, with sudden bursts of malicious traffic during flash sales or referral campaigns. According to the NCA, around 67% of fraud reported in the UK is now cyber-enabled, with online platforms playing a key role in authorised push payment frauds.
Meanwhile, travel platforms, which once anticipated surges mainly in the summer, now experience spikes during mid-year promotions and off-season discount campaigns, as fraudsters exploit booking APIs and flash offers. Fintech providers are also particularly vulnerable during lending cycles or product launches. In every case, these shifts show how fraud is becoming more persistent, adaptive, and closely aligned with legitimate customer behaviour. This makes it harder to anticipate and even harder to stop without having the right tools in place. To combat this, platforms need to move from reactive defences to intelligent prevention, adopting solutions that analyse behaviour, and spot anomalies and suspicious activity in real time.
Why the UK is a hot-spot
Across France, Germany and Spain, the UK has become one of the most exposed markets to online fraud. Its fast payments network, global financial reach, and consumer demand for seamless experiences can also create vulnerabilities. The result of this is a market where fraud can be executed quickly, at scale, and throughout the year.
Our data reflects this picture. Between January 2024 and July 2025, monthly fraud inquiries more than doubled, with peaks no longer confined to the traditional shopping season. September and October 2024 each saw around 480 million checks, and July 2025 set a new record at 525 million.
E-commerce accounts for the majority of fraud events detected across the year, driving volumes over 400 million monthly checks in 2025. Travel and mobility platforms had seasonal spikes during summer holidays, and fintech platforms show sharp surges in specific months, reflecting event-driven criminal activity. Gaming platforms also follow a similar pattern around promotional campaigns.
Now platforms need to look at how they respond. Many still plan for fraud in waves, tightening controls for retail peaks and easing them during quieter months. This fragmented approach leaves gaps that are quickly exploited, and the cost is high: from chargebacks and refund abuse that quietly erode margins, to the reputational damage that follows a breach of trust.
Building year-round resilience
Resilience has to start at the architectural level. Fraud prevention can’t sit on the edges of a business; it must be embedded into the core of platform operations. This begins with continuous monitoring across the full user journey, from registration to payment to refund. Controls should not be static but adjust in real time, aligning with campaigns, promotional cycles and refund periods. Criminals adapt quickly; so operating systems must too.
Equally, fraud prevention must protect without obstructing. Effective systems are almost invisible to genuine users as they enable secure payments and fast refunds while quietly intercepting bad actors in the background. When prevention is done well, customers barely notice.
Finally, collaboration strengthens resilience further. Fraudsters can operate in networks and platforms should consider taking this approach to. Sharing insights across the payment providers, marketplaces and fintechs ecosystem helps raise the baseline of protection for everyone. Working together within legal and regulatory frameworks can transform isolated defences into shared intelligence networks that adapt as fast as fraud evolves.
The new baseline
Fraud is no longer a temporary disruption. It’s a constant operating condition that defines how platforms must now build and grow. Treating it as a baseline cost of doing business means embedding resilience into the system itself.
Confidence isn’t earned through simply adding tighter rules, but by implementing infrastructure designed for security and adaptability. Fraud prevention must be embedded into the core structure, from payment architecture to AI-driven fraud prevention, to ensure security is built into every step of the user journey. The platforms that succeed will be the ones that stop seeing fraud prevention as optional and start treating it as the foundation of trust and scale.
About the Author
Mark Burton is Nethone’s VP of Engineering, Fraud Platform, overseeing the technical direction and scalability of the company’s fraud prevention solutions. Mark brings over 20 years of experience in software engineering and technical leadership, being also highly committed to mentoring engineering teams through complex technical transformations. Before joining Nethone, he held engineering leadership roles at Northrow, Yell, GeoSentric, and NEC. Mark also holds a PhD in High Energy Physics from the University of Manchester.
