New analysis has shown that nearly half of all scam warnings from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) relate to impersonations of real brands, leading to calls for search engines and social media firms to do more to protect consumers.

Wealth and advice management firm Quilter analysed five years of data from the FCA and found 45 percent of scams over the period were impersonation scams. Plus, 401 impersonation scams had been reported in 2020 so far, a 261 percent increase on 2015.<...