The internet and phone networks are now the vehicles for more
than half of all fraud committed on UK bank accounts, the UK's
payments industry association
Apacs said today.
The news comes after
the government announced it would spend £7m to set up a special
police unit to tackle e-crime. The banking industry already
pays for a dedicated card and cheque fraud police force, the
DCPCU.
Payment card fraud losses rose 14% to £302m in the first six
months of 2008, with 40% of frauds that involve UK bank accounts
committed overseas, Apacs said.
"Card not present" fraud, typically committed using internet,
phone and mail order, was up 18% to £162m, while
card ID theft was up 2% to just over £19m.
"These losses need to be seen in the context of increasing
numbers of online retailers and ever-growing numbers of online
transactions," said Sandra Quinn, Apacs director of
communications.
"From 2001 to 2007 this type of fraud went up by 204%, but over
the same time period the value of
online shopping card transactions alone increased by 415%."
Online banking fraud losses were up 185% to £21m, and cheque
fraud losses up by 35% to £20m, she said.
Quinn said the rise in online bank fraud was the result of more
phishing and spam attacks on account holders. More than 20,000
fraudulent phishing websites were recorded in the first half of
2008 - an increase of more than 180% from the same period last
year.
Quinn said the overseas frauds involved criminals who used cards
cloned from information on the
magnetic stripe of stolen UK
cards. They presented the cloned cards at cash machines and
retailers in countries that have yet to upgrade to
chip and PIN. These
include the US.