New figures show criminals are increasingly resorting to 'low-tech' scams to get hold of our credit and debit card details.
Card fraud increased in 2012, but mainly due to a rise in more unsophisticated ‘deception’ crimes, according to new figures from Financial Fraud Action.
Overall losses from debit and credit card fraud were up 14% on 2011 at £388 million, although this is 36% lower than their peak in 2008. And as security systems have become more sophisticated, criminals are increasingly resorting to ‘low-tech’, old-fashioned crimes such as distracting people at cash machines, or in shops and bars, making a note of their PIN and then stealing their card.
Singer Lulu tweeted that she had her debit card stolen recently after being distracted by three men at an ATM in central London. This type of crime rose by 42% in 2012.
Meanwhile, card not present fraud, where a card’s information has been ‘skimmed’ and stored for future use, or where a person has had their card details stolen after an online transaction, increased by 11%.
And for those of you who wonder why we frequently write articles warning about fake websites, online banking fraud rose by 12%, mostly due to people being duped by authentic-looking but nonetheless fake websites.
But telephone banking losses fell by a quarter and cheque fraud rose by just 2%.
Financial Fraud Action is reminding people not to give out information such as PINs or other card details to cold callers either on the phone or on the doorstep.
The good news is that 97% of the people who are defrauded get their money back.