UK plagued by rampant credit and debit card fraud |
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Wed, 09 Mar 2005 01:00
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UK consumers need to be more aware of the potential dangers of fraud involving their own credit and debit cards, which they carry with them and which unfortunately, are becoming more numerous!. Indiscriminate cases of fraud concerning credit cards and debit cards are being registered. In fact, reported card fraud cases have increased by at least one fifth since 2004, reaching a figure of £504.8m already this year.
Consumers have been cheated of a quite a lot of money through these fake transactions involving powerful computer viruses capable of culling out confidential security information particulars using software’s like keystroke logging. The mounting trend has even prompted the Association of Payment Clearing Services (APCS) to actually account the total money lost by deceived consumers and by internet scams, which subsequently added to £12m in 2004 (APCS).
| The APCS also attributed the escalation in the crime chiefly to the cards lost or stolen in transit/post. Also, the major cases of fraud that summed up to more than half the overall fraud amount were found to be ‘card not present’ and counterfeit card types.
Nevertheless, banks have attempted to arrest these events by introducing chip and pin cards which contain a smart chip, smarter than the usual magnetic strips, since they can store even more information. In addition, these chips ensure considerable safety with users verifying transactions with a pin number instead of signing an unsafe receipt. About 140 million debit/credit cards have been replaced by the new chip and pin cards. Alas, APCS has recorded some of these as well to have fallen prey to pranksters.
However, Sandra Quinn, APCS spokeswoman said that it was for the chip and pin cards that the fraud cases had not reached the £800m mark. Consequently, the chip and pin technology is now being looked at as a savior for card customers as it has slashed fraud cases in 2004. It served for the same in France where it was pioneered more than 10 years ago, cutting fraud by half. 90 million new cards have already hit the market and 50 million more are in the offing later this year.
The APCS has finally recommended customers to keep a vigil on their accounts at regular intervals to guarantee safe and secure transactions.
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