Rise of the online credit card sharks: Annual crime figures reveal fraud soaring to £610m
By Matthew Hickley Last updated at 11:23 AM on 17th July 2009 (excerpt)The cost of card fraud in Britain is spiralling out of control...
Card fraud cost the UK £610million last year - up by 43 per cent in just two years - and more than three quarters (77%) of all offenses now involve Internet, telephone or mail order shopping where chip-and-pin technology offers no protection. (all Card NOT Present environments)
The British Crime Survey - based on interviews with 40,000 householders - shows there were 2.8million fraudulent card transactions last year, up 4 per cent year-on-year, and the proportion of cardholders who are victims has risen from 3.7 to 6.4 per cent in the past three years.
Card-not-present fraud accounts for 77 per cent of all incidents - almost 2.2million last year - and losses rose by 13 per cent to £328million.
A spokesman for the UK Cards Association trade body said the figureswere 'not good', but insisted they should be seen in the context of ahuge rise in online shopping.
Between 2001 and 2008, card-not-present fraud soared by 243 per centfrom £95.7million to £ 328.4million. But over the same period the totalvalue of online shopping in the UK leapt by 524 per cent, from£6.6billion to £41.2billion.