Australians a soft Target for Fraudulent Transactions

A recent survey conducted by a number of organisations all around the world indicate that Australia is a Land of Milk and Honey for the fraudsters. So what forms the basis of this theory, common let us have a glimpse. The first evidence for the above theory is from ACI, a provider of application softwares for electronic payments, surveyed some 2409 people globally out of which 310 responded were from Australia. The results of survey were as follows

• One in ten Australian respondents had faced card fraud once
• 2.58 percent were unlucky enough to lose funds twice.
• 1.29 percent claimed to have been a victim three times.
• 0.64 percent of them have experienced more than three occasions.

The irony here is that in the US and UK, 27 percent of respondents had been hit by card fraud in the past five years, compared to seven percent in Dubai, eight percent in Germany and 15 percent in China and Singapore.

Police say the 2009 figure will be massively higher than 2008, with more than 190 ATMs already subjected to skimming attacks so far this year. If this rate continues, 250 ATMs will have been compromised by year's end, compared with just a handful in 2008.

Top Romanian fraud officer, Inspector Elvis Tudose, says his country's crime gangs have found Australia in a big way this year because of a simple feature: the magnetic stripe on the back of cards that makes skimming far easier.

People's names, identity and card data are installed on the black strip on the back of cards. But new cards now offered by banks overseas contain a smartcard chip impregnated into the card, making skimming far harder.

"The criminals thought it would be a good idea to move their field of operations to Australia," Insp Tudose said. Eastern European criminals make multiple card copies and withdraw money using customer PINs.

Supt Hay says this allows criminals to be quick and deadly in cleaning out accounts
Australian Payments Clearing Association indicates incidence of credit card fraud rose from 18.6 for every 100,000 transactions in 2007 to 21.8 per 100,000 transactions in 2008. The incidence of debit card fraud dropped from 2.3 in 2007 to 1.7 in 2008 (again, for every 100,000 transactions.)