At the height of the first pandemic summer in 2020, I sent more than £18,000 to a scammer. Back then, I’d never heard of the kind of con that ensnared me, though I later learned it was a classic of the genre: a call from my bank’s “fraud team” warning of “suspicious activity” on my account, followed by instructions to move my vulnerable funds into a new “safe” account. Later that night, my housemate stared in horror as I explained the conversation I’d had with a nice man from the bank. “Moya,” he said, aghast. “That was a scam.” By the time I understood what had happened, it was too late. Each of my three bank accounts read £0.00.

In the weeks that followed, I felt as though my mind was disintegrating. I had struggled sporadically with anxiety for years, but that had always come on subtly, sneakily, like smoke creeping under a door. This was psychological devastation of a different order, more akin to being clubbed around the head. I was 28, and every imagined future version of my life had been predicated on those savings. Now, I believed those futures had been suddenly and violently erased. If I wasn’t sobbing and vomiting on the street, I felt numb and dissociated, as if I was floating above myself. For the first time in my life, I wished I didn’t have to wake up in the morning. I didn’t want to be dead, but I didn’t want to have to exist, either.

In the end, I was lucky: my bank reimbursed me in full. But since then, whenever I have seen headlines highlighting the staggering level of scams and fraud in the UK, I have thought about the people behind the numbers. According to a report from UK Finance, in 2023, £459.7m was lost in cases of “authorised” fraud, where the victim is tricked into sending money to a fraudster. Confirmed cases are up more than 50% since 2020.

Against the backdrop of the UK’s mental health crisis, experts are increasingly sounding the alarm about the impact of scams on victims’ psyches. Recent research by Which? shows that three in five UK fraud victims say their mental health was negatively affected by the experience, while a separate, not-yet-published survey by Lloyds found 69% of fraud victims experienced a decline in their mental health. Anxiety, depression and low self-esteem are commonly reported by fraud victims whose mental health is affected. Prof Mark Button, the director of the Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime at the University of Portsmouth, says he is aware of “lots of cases” where someone has killed themself “as a result of fraud victimisation”.

On one level, this isn’t surprising. We know financial strain is linked to mental ill health, and it is not unreasonable to assume that a person might struggle following a crime that hurts their bank balance. But experts say the connection between scams and psychological wellbeing is more complex.

“You might say, if you’ve lost £20,000, that must be awfully traumatic,” says Wayne Stevens, the national fraud lead at Victim Support. “But actually, we see people losing those sums of money who managed to ride it out, and then people losing a 10th of that amount [where] it has a devastating effect on them.” Our response to a scam is not usually shaped by financial loss, Stevens says, but by factors including “how connected we are with our family, our friends or our community; whether we’ve got other things going on in our lives, [such as] bereavements and employment [issues or] insecure housing; or whether we’ve experienced personal trauma”.

Even in cases where a scam fails, the psychological impact can be profound. Funmi (not her real name), who is 78 and from London, was recently the victim of an attempted computer takeover scam. “I kept getting an alert, purporting to be from a legit cybersecurity firm, telling me to enter my details to protect my computer,” says the retired teacher, who has been on medication and in therapy for anxiety since the 1980s. Funmi often worries about her online security, and she followed the alert’s instructions. Suddenly, the scammer had control of her computer. “I could see the cursor going everywhere. Then [the scammer] was in my PayPal, and I thought, oh my God.”

The scammer tried to steal only £35 from Funmi and her bank immediately blocked the transaction. But the experience has still “ramped up” her anxiety, especially as she is now being bombarded with phishing texts and emails. (Fraudsters are known to sell lists of victims’ details to other criminals.) “I feel so vulnerable – my phone has become a device of horror and dread,” Funmi says. “I feel paranoid about everything.”

Paranoia is a common response in the wake of a scam, and it can be difficult to shake. Stefan Walters, a psychotherapist and registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, says he has noticed an increase in recent years of clients wanting to discuss being scammed. Falling victim to a scam or fraud, he explains, can force us to reassess our “internal working model”, or the unconscious beliefs we hold about ourselves and others. “We may think: ‘Is the world around me full of people I could trust and who have good intentions? Or is it full of people who are out to get me?’”

After being scammed, we might also “start to look at ourselves and say: ‘Am I a good character? Do I know what to look for in people? Maybe I’m really gullible,’” Walters continues. “We start to doubt not only other people, but also ourselves.”

For Des Healey, 59, from Peacehaven in East Sussex, being scammed hasn’t just meant financial loss – it has fundamentally challenged his sense of self. The scam started when he clicked on a Facebook advert for an “AI cryptocurrency platform” in August 2023. Encouraged by nightly phone conversations with an affable man posing as his financial adviser, and reassured by the platform’s apparent endorsements from Elon Musk and Martin Lewis, Healey began investing increasingly large sums, ultimately losing £76,000.

Since the scam, Healey has struggled with symptoms of depression, anxiety and paranoia. When he started to cry during an appointment with his GP about a physical health issue, the doctor concluded he was probably experiencing bodily reactions to the mental toll of the scam.

Healey comes across as confident and canny. He raised his son as a single parent, runs his own business fitting bathrooms and kitchens, and until the scam had an excellent credit rating. “I did think I was very streetwise,” he says. “I would be the person to warn someone: ‘That’s a scam, it doesn’t sound right.’ And yet here I am.”

In the aftermath of a scam, the process of trying to get their money back can make victims feel even worse. Button says the multiple agencies involved in preventing and responding to scams – including financial institutions, telecoms companies and tech platforms – are not sufficiently “joined up”, meaning it is essentially “a lottery whether someone will get the true support that they need”. Research by National Trading Standards shows that among the minority of victims who report the crime to the authorities, almost half (47%) say they were made to feel “stupid or embarrassed”. Only 34% felt “fully heard and understood”.

Since 2019, most UK high street banks have signed up to a voluntary code that outlines how they should refund victims of bank transfer scams (also known as “authorised push payment” or APP fraud). Banks can refuse to reimburse victims if they are judged to have been “grossly negligent” – meaning, in lay terms, they should have twigged they were being had. A recent rule change means all UK banks must now refund APP fraud victims within five days. But as the gross negligence caveat remains, many victims will still lose out.

Margaret (not her real name), 73, who is retired and lives in Cheshire, fell victim to an impersonation scam similar to the one that affected me. She transferred £19,800 to the criminals, much of which had been left to her by her husband after his death last year. Margaret’s bank refused to reimburse her, saying she should have known it was a scam. The fraudsters had coached her to lie when real bank staff questioned the transfer.

When you are the target of such a stigmatised crime, it can be excruciating to be blamed by your bank on top of everything else. Feeling “absolutely stupid” and worried about being judged, Margaret confided in just two people outside her immediate family about the scam. Two-thirds of scam victims don’t disclose the experience to anyone at all.

The psychologist and trauma specialist Dr Heather Sequeira says the shame experienced by some people after a scam has parallels with “other forms of trauma, such as sexual trauma or domestic violence”, where victims are often blamed. Margaret says the scam left her feeling “violated and abused”, phrasing that is entirely appropriate: a study published in the British Journal of Criminology highlights striking similarities between the manipulative language used by fraudsters and perpetrators of coercive control. “In the same way that a victim of domestic abuse may think, ‘It’s my fault, I let him in my house’, a scam victim might say, ‘I didn’t read that properly’, or ‘I signed it,’” says Sequeira. The shame “shuts us down”, she says. “It stops us from reaching out to get the help that would make us feel a bit better.”

Even with the recent changes to reimbursement rules, experts say scam victims in the UK are getting a raw deal. Banks aren’t obliged to refund victims for amounts above £85,000 – even though the organisation behind the rule change, the Payment Systems Regulator, has acknowledged this could “[heighten] the psychological and emotional harm” caused to scam victims. Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at Which?, says the reimbursement limit is “very disappointing. More needs to be done to lessen the unfair psychological burden on scam victims.” The government should lead a “more coordinated approach” on this issue, she adds.

Until then? “Starting the conversation” may not be the solution to all mental health struggles, but in the context of scams, speaking to others can be like letting light and air into a dark, shuttered room. Some UK police forces now run peer support programmes for fraud victims, an approach many experts would like to see rolled out more widely. But there is power in talking about the emotional and mental impact of scams in our everyday lives, too. As a lifelong yapper, I was open about being scammed from the start, and found relief and solidarity in commiserating with other victims. These conversations took place mostly on social media, and helped me process my initial feelings of shock and humiliation into a cold and righteous anger. When I was fighting to get my money back, I needed that anger as fuel.

Healey, the only scam victim I spoke to for this piece who wanted to be quoted under his real name, also refuses to be shamed into silence. “At first, I didn’t want to tell anybody,” he says. “I felt so embarrassed. But in the end, I thought to myself, why am I hiding what’s happened? I’m not the perpetrator. I’m the victim.” Through conversations with friends, colleagues and neighbours, Healey realised just how common scams are: they are happening to people of all ages and backgrounds, every day. That has helped him to stop blaming himself. “I still owe an extortionate amount of money,” he says. “But when I started to talk about it, I felt a release.”

• If you have been the victim of a scam, you can access free advice and support through Victim Support. The Age UK Scams Prevention and Support Programme aims to prevent older people from becoming victims of scams and to support older victims of scams. For more resources, visit stopthinkfraud.campaign.gov.uk