London is hit harder by scam calls promising compensation for car accidents than anywhere else in the UK.

Caller ID company Hiya has published research revealing the patterns in phone scamming throughout 2016.

Scammers calling victims pretending to have a record of their car accidents are the most prevalent in the UK, followed by scams related to PPI and calls saying victims have won a prize.

Car accident scams grew by 84 per cent across the year, peaking in October, while PPI scams grew by 81 per cent.

The UK is the worst country for nuisance calls in Europe, with UK numbers receiving 13 per cent of all scam calls in the continent.

London’s ‘020’ numbers were revealed as the subject of more scam calls than any other numbers in the UK.

Hiya CEO Alex Algard said: “Defrauding people is big business, which is why the number of scam calls continues to grow and more elaborate schemes appear.

“Scammers are getting more sophisticated – they mask the calls by using common area codes so people answer them.

“Our advice is to be careful and trust your instinct.

“If an offer sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.”