Credit card fraud in Northern Ireland

Credit card fraud in Ulster tops £2m

By Jonathan McCambridge, Crime Correspondent
jmccambridge@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

08 July 2005

CREDIT card fraud has cost consumers in Northern Ireland over £2m in just four years, it can be revealed.

However, the public has been warned that the full extent of the level of deception and identity frauds could be substantially higher because the majority of these crimes are never reported to police.

It is believed that the majority of the frauds involve instances of lost or stolen cards or 'skimming' crimes.

Security Minister Shaun Woodward revealed that the PSNI have dealt with 2,136 cases where criminal benefit had been obtained from credit card deceptions since 2002.

In response to a written parliamentary question from Strangford MP Iris Robinson, the Minister revealed that the total gain to criminals was £2,305,061.

He said: "I am assured that the PSNI Cheque and Credit Card Unit is working closely with all relevant agencies and is involved in a number of different initiatives in an effort to combat credit card fraud.

"These figures are based on incidents reported to the police.

"The true figure could be significantly higher as much of this type of crime is not reported directly to the police, but rather financial institutions such as banks."

Strangford MP Iris Robinson said: "It is alarming that already in 2005 almost half a million pounds has been lost through credit card deception in Northern Ireland, which is more than the full-year totals both for 2002 and 2003.

"The figures provided by the Minister of course represent only a fraction of the real total.

"Clearly there is a significant amount of this form of crime occurring in Northern Ireland. The public need to be watchful regarding protection of their personal details."

USA TODAY - Editorial on Fighting Online Fraud By VISA USA

I take issue with USA TODAY's article "Credit card fraud hits small online merchants hard" (Money, June 28).

Protecting cardholder information and preventing fraud are job one at Visa. Our company has invested billions of dollars in the industry's most advanced anti-fraud technologies, resulting in an all-time low fraud rate of 5 cents per $100 transacted.

Some readers might infer from the story that merchants alone bear the cost of fraud. They should know that in a majority of transactions — those where the card is present at the point of sale — liability rests with the bank issuing the card, as long as the merchant follows simple steps for card authentication.

For card-not-present sales, Visa has put in place multiple tools to help merchants avoid fraud-related costs.

For example, our Verified by Visa authentication service transfers fraud liability costs from the merchant onto the card-issuing bank. Our Card Verification Value 2 technology helps verify that online customers are in physical possession of the card. Utilizing the Address Verification Service allows online merchants to match the purchaser's billing address to the billing address of the actual cardholder on file with the issuing institution.

Fighting fraud is a role that financial institutions and merchants alike must play. I urge merchants to visit www.visa.com/merchants to find out more about our fraud prevention technologies.

Merchants should also contact their financial institution and/or processor to determine which fraud-fighting services are available for use on behalf of our shared customer: the U.S. consumer.

John Shaughnessy Jr., Senior vice president, Risk Management Visa USA, San Francisco