Oct
15Card fraudsters turn to old-fashioned scams
Tagged Under : Turn, Turn Oldfashioned
Stolen card fraud rises as new security technology causes criminals to turn to simple theft. 
6:11AM BST 05 Oct 2011
Phone banking fraud losses rose 48pc to £8.6 million during January to June 2011, while cheque fraud losses increased from £14.0 million in the first half of 2010 to £16.4 million during the same period in 2011. Lost and stolen card fraud losses also rose slightly, increasing by £4.4 million.
However, the figures show that overall fraud losses on UK cards decreased in the first half of 2011 compared with the same time last year, as did fraud on online bank accounts.
Total fraud losses on UK cards fell to £169.8 million between January and June 2011 – a 9 per cent reduction compared with losses in the first half of 2010. This half-year total is the lowest for eleven years and also the third consecutive decrease.
The sustained fall is due to the success of a number of industry initiatives such as the increasing use of fraud detection software, the roll- out of updated chip cards and the increasing roll-out of chip and PIN technology abroad.
Initiatives such as chip and PIN have made it harder to commit ‘high-tech’ frauds, and criminals are instead reverting to more basic frauds centred around stealing people’s cards and PINs. These scams range from distracting people in shops or at cash machines and then stealing their cards without them noticing, to simply tricking them into handing over their cards and PINs on their own doorstep¹.
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