Credit card fraud is all too common. Despite the attempts of many within the card processing industry, in 2008 it was estimated that more than 600 million pounds was spent fraudulently using cards. A huge number, and to put that into perspective that’s the sort of money you’d require to buy five championship football clubs!

It’s clear that hundreds of thousands of people are being affected, but what are the most common cause of problems and what can you do to reduce your risk of being one of the unlucky ones?

Malware on your computer

The rise of internet shopping has introduced a whole new area of credit card fraud, and despite millions of online payments being made every day it can still be risky. It’s not technically the website’s faults in most cases. If you have a virus on your computer it may be able to keep track of any card details you enter into websites. Do you want to reduce the risk? Keep your computer up to date with all the latest updates from Windows and make sure your anti-virus software up to date. It might also be worth considering an Apple Mac. Though not immune to viruses and malware, Apple Macs are affected less frequently than PCs.

Card Skimming on the ATM

One of the easiest types of credit card fraud to be affected by and partially to explain for recent rises in the fraud rate. The con artist places a small card reader where you insert your card into the cash machine, it reads the bar code in the same way the proper machine does. This gives them all the information about the card, though they still don’t have the most important piece of information, the PIN. They capture this with a small video camera. You can quite easily reduce the risk by covering your hand while entering the pin to make it more difficult to determine what buttons you are entering.

Application Fraud

Identity fraud is a term most people will be aware of. They’ll know to shred all personal information, but they may not know why. One of the main risks is where someone accumulates all your personal details and applies for credit on your behalf. You know nothing about the card while they spend the credit the card allows. How can you reduce this risk? Make sure you dispose of you personal details securely; this doesn’t mean you have to shred every piece of junk mail you receive but anything with more than your name and address on.

Phone Calls Asking for Details

The rise of advertising calls and overseas call centres means you might get a phone call from someone you don’t recognise asking for personal details. Sometimes these calls are legitimate but it’s best to check. Ask them for a number to call back on then make sure that’s an official phone number of the company they are calling from. If you enter the phone number into Google you’ll likely find a website giving more information about the number, especially if it’s a big organisation.

Mail Interception

Getting your card to your house is all about convenience, but it increases the risk of someone getting hold of the card before you and spending money before you even realise it’s missing. You’re most at risk if you have a shared front door with lots of people’s mail combined together or if you don’t have a trust worthy postie! There is one really easy way to reduce the risk to zero – get your card delivered to the nearest branch of your bank. That way you’ll need identification to pick it up! Safe and Secure.

Tags: Fraud