Cheque fraud on the rise
Plastic card initiatives have proved successful at curbing credit card fraud, but criminals are now returning to old-fashioned cheque and telephone frauds.
The UK Card Association reports that credit card fraud fell in 2011 by 7%, to its lowest level since the turn of the century, but thats still a whopping £340m in the year. Online banking fraud has fallen even more impressively, down by 20% to £35m, and that despite an 80% increase in phishing emails over the year.
With the introduction of Chip and Pin, there was a marked reduction in card fraud in shops, and the criminal focus moved to using cards online. However, people are now becoming more aware to the perils of the fraudulent "security check" emails supposedly from their banks, and are more cautious about handing over card numbers. Education and information helps combat fraud.
An unexpected consequence of this is that old-fashioned telephone banking fraud rose by 32% in 2011 and accounted for £18m of bank losses, whilst the even older technology, cheque fraud, rose by 24% and cost the banks £34m. Rather like the phishing emails, the telephone frauds often involve people receiving calls supposedly from their bank asking them for their account numbers and banking password. Cheque fraud mostly involves stolen cheques, although there is also some problem with counterfeits.
With telephones, some people rely on Caller ID to check that the caller is who they claim to be. However, with the right equipment, it is possible for the caller to change the number displayed on the Caller ID. There are good reasons for doing this. Large offices with many lines want their phones to display the main switchboard number, for example. However, phone spammers have also used this technique to disguise their origin. Last week, overseas spammers were using automated equipment to make thousands of unwanted telemarketing calls an hour and were spoofing the caller ID to make it look as if they were calling from the West Midlands legal firm We Solve It. Naturally, this resulted in We Solve It being bombarded with complaints from people getting marketing calls and silent calls at unsocial hours.
27th March 2012
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.