Fraud

The number of credit and debit cards that are stolen are being used even more fraudulently than at first anticipated.

Over £500 million more fraudulent activity was reported than was first reported, after an undercover investigation was performed.

Despite Chip and Pin technology we are still experiencing a rise on credit card fraud. Mainly from stolen cards, but also from counterfeit cards too.

The Association of Payment Clearing Services has seen this 25% increase in card fraud, the first in 3 years, and reports they were mainly due to cards that were stolen or copied and used overseas.

 The Times newspaper has revealed it has found several websites, over 100 in fact, that are selling bank details, PIN numbers and credit card numbers from some 32 individuals.

Reports confirm that the details are for active UK bank and credit card accounts, which is quite worrying. It would mean that someone could in theory spend thousands online.

I have just read a shocking article on the Telegraph website that says 1 in 10 Britons have been a victim of some kind of scam. It is claimed that up to 3.2 million british people have fallen for these scams either by phone, email or letter.

It is unbelievable that there are so many people out there who try to extract money from innocent people (and seem to succeed) it is more unbelievable that so many people are still falling for these tricks!

Most of these scams offer an expensive prize or large sums of money where a small ‘administration fee’ is needed first to ‘release’ the winnings. However you are likely to never see your money again or more recently cheques have been sent which have proved to be fakes. It has been discovered that a lot of the money the fraudsters gain from these illegal methods is used for funding drug trafficking, particularly in parts of Africa.

You can visit the Metropolitan Police website for more information of these mass fraud attempts or read the rest of the article here

Remember - you can’t get something for nothing. If it sounds too goods to be true, it’s probably not!