Just one in 1,000 frauds are solved by police as officers are accused of “looking for excuses not to investigate”.

Just 4,924 fraud offences resulted in a charge last year out of more than five million scams reported by people in the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) annual survey of crime.

This means just 0.1 per cent of frauds resulted in a prosecution despite the number of offences rising by 32.4 per cent from 3.8 million in 2020, according to the analysis of official data by The Telegraph.

One senior police watchdog said the failure to tackle fraud was spurring criminals into it because they knew there was a less than one in a 100 chance of being detected.

“Why don’t the police take fraud seriously. It is because the politicians don’t take it seriously. Why is that? Because they think it is an invisible crime. The fact is it is not if someone loses their entire life savings and then takes their life as a result,” said the watchdog.

Some forces were actively “seeking reasons” not to probe allegations, according to HM inspectors of police, with one force taking no further action on cases from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau – even those with strong evidence and suspects identified.

One member of staff told inspectors their role was to “reduce demand on investigators.” “It there is an excuse not to investigate, we will use it,” they said.

‘Criminal fraudsters are being let off and victims are being let down’

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said it was “appalling” so few cases were being solved by police forces and Action Fraud, the national police unit.

“Criminal fraudsters are being let off and vulnerable victims are being let down, sometimes losing thousands in savings. For some people, this can be the difference between security and hardship, between a happy retirement or years of anguish and worry,” she told The Telegraph.

“Ministers have been warned repeatedly that Action Fraud isn’t working and that police forces aren’t investigating this crime. Yet they have taken no action at all while fraud soars. The Home Secretary must start taking this damaging crime seriously.”

Fewer than a tenth of the 5 million frauds recorded by people in the ONS crime survey are reported to police, largely because people are either ashamed at being scammed or believe it is such a low priority crime for forces that it is unlikely to be investigated.