Card fraud is an ever-present problem in the UK in which £1.2m is lost to card fraudsters every single day. This further works out as a theft every nine seconds and a third of the UK’s population has, at one time or another, been a victim of this crime.
Chip and pin may have helped in some way but it continues to be prevalent in various forms. There is card-not-present fraud, which is where the fraud takes place, not in person but over the phone or through the internet, fax or mail order and the criminal obtains debit and credit card details to make fraudulent transactions. This is the biggest type of card fraud within the UK.
The most common cash machine fraud is termed “skimming” which occurs when card readers and small cameras are attached to the cash machine in order to capture card details and to record the victim keying in their pin number. Another form of skimming takes place in situations such as in a restaurant where a corrupt employee puts the card through a device which copies the data from the card’s magnetic stripe.
These are perhaps the most common types of fraud but there are others, including bank details phishing, which is becoming more common and takes place when fake emails appear in a person’s inbox which look as if they have come from that person’s bank and is used by criminals to gain passwords and bank account details. Others include pharming, using a fake website to access a person’s online bank account and intercepting financial mail where debit and credit cards are stolen from the mail.
As to what a person can do when they find themselves the victim of card fraud, they should firstly get in touch with the card issuer as soon as possible after the discovery to cancel any further transactions. Also credit reference agencies can be contacted to check that no fraudulent applications for credit have been made in their name.
Also, of course people can help themselves by checking their bank accounts often to make sure there any no unexplained transactions which have been recorded, while people at cash machines should be wary of those around them, making sure that they keep their hand over the cash machine to ensure the numbers are not identified by a potential criminal. Also, if they suspect a device has been attached to a machine they should contact the bank or the police to explain their suspicions.