In these days of quick and easy credit card purchases of everything from gasoline at the pump to movie tickets on “Fandango,” fear of credit card theft is never far away.
“For years I’ve thought this is stupid,” said a recent local victim of credit card theft who asked not to be identified. She believes that businesses invite theft when they do not require signatures for credit card purchases — such as at a gas pump — so that the signature can be verified by a clerk. “It drives me nuts,” she said.
But credit card theft may not be the growing problem we often are told it is.
“Credit card fraud … is on the decline,” writes Indiana University professor Fred H. Cate, director of the IU Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.
The total cost of credit card fraud fell 10 percent, to $788 million from $882 million, between 2003 and 2004, and fraudulent charges are lower as a percentage of total card use in the United States than anywhere else in the world, Cate writes.
Nevertheless, credit card fraud remains a serious and expensive problem.
“There’s no doubt that financial institutions as a group are losing millions and millions of dollars” to credit card theft, said Pete Piazza, vice president of lending at the Indiana State University Credit Union, which, like many banking institutions, issues its own credit cards. “It’s a huge problem,” he said.
By law, card holders are not liable for more than $50 in losses from credit card fraud and banks seldom, if ever, pursue even that amount, Piazza said. In most cases of credit card fraud, the issuing banks absorb the costs. Additionally, banks have higher operating costs because of credit card fraud. The ISU Federal Credit Union, for example, has a full-time employee devoted primarily to handling credit card fraud problems, Piazza said.
And of course, all these costs ultimately are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices, reduced services and lost jobs, Cate writes.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Man sentenced for credit card fraud
The United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, announced that Brendan Mooney, 25, of Delmar, New York, was sentenced Friday to three years imprisonment, to be followed by a period of three years supervised release.
The sentence was handed down in United States District Court in Utica based on Mooney's plea in July 2006 to both counts of an indictment charging him with credit card fraud and aggravated identity theft. Mooney also was ordered to make restitution in the total amount of $78,729 to the credit card companies that were the victims of his scheme.
According to the indictment and additional information made public at the court proceedings in the case, Mooney used his father's social security number and other identifying information, without his father's knowledge or permission, to obtain seven credit cards that he used $78,000 worth of goods in Albany County, other areas of New York, as well as in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee.
Among the items Mooney admitted obtaining was a 2005 Dodge Dakota pick-up truck that he purchased with three of the fraudulently obtained credit cards at an automobile dealership in Colonie, New York.
The sentence was handed down in United States District Court in Utica based on Mooney's plea in July 2006 to both counts of an indictment charging him with credit card fraud and aggravated identity theft. Mooney also was ordered to make restitution in the total amount of $78,729 to the credit card companies that were the victims of his scheme.
According to the indictment and additional information made public at the court proceedings in the case, Mooney used his father's social security number and other identifying information, without his father's knowledge or permission, to obtain seven credit cards that he used $78,000 worth of goods in Albany County, other areas of New York, as well as in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee.
Among the items Mooney admitted obtaining was a 2005 Dodge Dakota pick-up truck that he purchased with three of the fraudulently obtained credit cards at an automobile dealership in Colonie, New York.
100 drivers hit by card fraud
MORE than 100 motorists have fallen victim to a card-cloning gang who targeted an Edinburgh petrol station.
The thieves stole tens of thousands of pounds from the drivers' accounts after copying their credit card details at the BP garage in Barclay Place, Bruntsfield.
Police are hunting a former petrol station attendant who is believed to have been working for an organised criminal gang.
The thieves stole tens of thousands of pounds from the drivers' accounts after copying their credit card details at the BP garage in Barclay Place, Bruntsfield.
Police are hunting a former petrol station attendant who is believed to have been working for an organised criminal gang.
Credit card fraud arrests in Ajax
Toronto - Durham Regional Police have busted up a stolen credit card operation, arresting a man and woman from Ajax.
Police say they found over 100 credit cards numbers from financial institutions in Canada and the United States, in the couple's Hinsley Crescent house.
They also found a fake Canadian citizenship and Social Insurance card which police say were used to make purchases on the Internet.
Over $8,000 worth of furniture purchased with stolen credit card data was also recovered from the house.
Several retailers and financial institutions had reported losses as a result of the credit card purchases made by the couple.
Thirty-six-year-old Wilson Gumbara and 36-year-old Lorraine Hazel of Ajax are facing several fraud related charges.
Police say they found over 100 credit cards numbers from financial institutions in Canada and the United States, in the couple's Hinsley Crescent house.
They also found a fake Canadian citizenship and Social Insurance card which police say were used to make purchases on the Internet.
Over $8,000 worth of furniture purchased with stolen credit card data was also recovered from the house.
Several retailers and financial institutions had reported losses as a result of the credit card purchases made by the couple.
Thirty-six-year-old Wilson Gumbara and 36-year-old Lorraine Hazel of Ajax are facing several fraud related charges.
No easy money to be had in credit-card fraud scheme
A Stone Mountain man asked the teller of a Norcross bank for $4,000 on his Chase Visa card.
The teller, knowing an identify-theft ring had been using Chase Visas, quickly found the card was fraudulent and called police.
A Gwinnett officer found the 34-year-old suspect outside the bank talking on his cellphone. His 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis was backed into a parking space for a quick getaway. The man tried to appease the officer by explaining he had been out of work for 18 months and that a friend had recruited him into the credit-card ring to make some easy money.
The officer asked for the friend's name.
The name was an alias — or somebody else's.
Officers think they got the suspect's correct name by running his tag.
They shouldn't jump to conclusions, however, because the tag office listed his surname as "Hood."
Whoever he is, he was arrested.
The teller, knowing an identify-theft ring had been using Chase Visas, quickly found the card was fraudulent and called police.
A Gwinnett officer found the 34-year-old suspect outside the bank talking on his cellphone. His 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis was backed into a parking space for a quick getaway. The man tried to appease the officer by explaining he had been out of work for 18 months and that a friend had recruited him into the credit-card ring to make some easy money.
The officer asked for the friend's name.
The name was an alias — or somebody else's.
Officers think they got the suspect's correct name by running his tag.
They shouldn't jump to conclusions, however, because the tag office listed his surname as "Hood."
Whoever he is, he was arrested.
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