Make sure your finances don’t get burnt this summer, as fraudsters set their sights on unwary holiday makers. Action Fraud, which aims to prevent scams and cyber crime, says sunseekers lost £12.3m last year from targeted frauds, with the average loss being £1,851.

It isn’t just holidaymakers who need to be on their guard. Financial scams are rife, with fraudsters targeting bank accounts as well as pensions and savings. Phishing scams are among the most prevalent — where emails or texts are sent out, purportedly from a trusted company, encouraging people to disclose personal or financial details, or to visit a website which can download a virus onto their device to harvest further data.

Investment scams are also unfortunately common. Here, fraudsters convince people to transfer pensions or other savings into schemes promising enticing returns. Of course, these too-good-to-be-true investments turn out to be just that. At best, they are high-risk, unregulated investments where there’s a strong chance that savers will lose money. At worst, they are pyramid schemes, where the money simply lines the bank accounts of the criminals targeting unwary investors.

Hundreds of people fall victim to financial scams every year. Last year over 800 people contacted a dedicated helpline set up by the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS), with losses totalling £13.6m, an average of £16,297 per caller.

There are steps you can take to help protect yourself. Before putting money into any investment or pension product run the details through the ScamSmart investment checker.

Remember the golden rules: never be rushed into making a financial decision and be extremely wary of any third party contacting you. And finally, don’t forget that if a deal looks too good to be true, it is probably a scam.