Half of people in the Netherlands believe they can spot fraud right away

The survey shows that more men than women think they can spot fraud. Almost two thirds of the men (63%) believe that they can immediately recognise a scammer, while according to Statistics Netherlands the percentage of men who become victims of online crime does not differ from the percentage of female victims.

These were the main conclusions from the study:

• Almost half of the Dutch believe that fraud, such as phishing, spoofing or help desk fraud, happens to gullible people (48%) and/or people who are not very tech-savvy (49%).

• Three quarters of the Dutch (72%) have become more suspicious when receiving messages from large organisations like the government, telecom providers or banks because of everything they have been hearing about fraud.

• More than a third of the respondents (37%) did not know about help desk fraud. At 8%, this figure was much lower for phishing, which has received a lot of attention.

Help with protection

One of the most common scamming methods – banking help desk fraud – is typified by pressure to act quickly. ABN AMRO wants to protect its clients against this as well as possible and is therefore introducing a “Savings Lock”. Tens of thousands of ABN AMRO clients have turned on their Savings Lock since its introduction.

Roald Tillmanns, Savings manager at ABN AMRO:

Fraud becoming increasingly more personal

The measures Dutch banks take to protect people against fraud are working better and better, while at the same time new forms of fraud are constantly being added. In addition, criminals are continuously adjusting their approach. For example, they are increasingly using forms of fraud where people are persuaded to carry out the transfer of funds themselves. It is also difficult to distinguish fake messages from real messages these days. According to the Dutch Banking Association (NVB), in 2021 the damage as a result of banking help desk fraud amounted to €47.6 million.

The more someone knows about the different forms of fraud the better they are equipped to recognise scams. In recent years, a lot of attention has been paid to phishing, and the survey shows that 86% of the Dutch can explain what this means. On the other hand, the public’s knowledge is lagging when it comes to new forms of fraud like help desk fraud, where the scammer pretends to work at the help desk of a large, well-known company. More than a third of the Dutch cannot explain how scammers go about this.

The Dutch are also taking action on their own to protect themselves against fraud. For example, three in four ensure that the software on their mobile and computer is kept up to date. Two thirds of the Dutch state that they use a two-step verification system, and for those up to the age of 30, this percentage is even 77%.

About the survey

In this representative survey conducted in May 2022 by Kien/PanelWizard on behalf of ABN AMRO, 1,366 Dutch people aged 18 and older were surveyed.