hi all,
last month i was unfortunately the victim of the credit card fraud called ‘skimming’. this is when my card details are unknowingly (to me) copied via a hand held copy device by a corrupt employee working in common places like bars/restaurants and petrol stations and transferred onto another card.
my case was fairly text book. i found out when my credit card company phoned me asking me about multiple purchases recently made, i of course couldn’t confirm any of them and was told that that is what they had expected, and so cancelled the card immediately, and luckily i wasn’t liable for any of the costs. i was told they would be investigating this, and that i couldn’t do anything more.
so a month later i got a letter saying that their investigations had come to a close and that no one had been prosecuted. is this really all that can be done? surely its not that easy to get away with something as major as card fraud? what type of investigations did they do, and would it even be worth their while to investigate small amounts? i’m just shocked by the apparent attitude to this type of crime, the sort of ‘oh well sh*t happens’ type i seem to get across from my credit card company. just so fed up paying higher rates to cover the expenses of these fraudsters.
some incite into this would be gratefully appreciated.
In most cases, banks do not actively prosecute. We will assist the authorities with their case. You can always file a police report but in my experience, credit card fraud ranks low on the police priority list.
Why don’t we?
a) The costs of prosecution usually outweigh the amount of fraud loss. Attorney fees, etc.
b) In most cases, we can/do get the money back from the merchant ie a chargeback. If it is proven the merchant did not follow Visa/Mastercard procedures, they lose the money.
c) A lot of times, we can’t substaniate a suspect. In cases of online fraud, for example, the thief gives the merchant a cell phone number and an empty house as the billing address. They watch for the package to be delivered and pick it up when the coast is clear. They use fake information.
In cases of large fraud loss - especially confirmed fraud rings - we do prosecute if we have a solid case.
Agree w/ above ,as both a victim & one who works w/ police. Cops don’t care about this, it might as well be a civil wrong. Cops really don’t care about much, except felonies w/ serious injury/death.
When I was the victim of credit fraud (and knew who the perp. was), the police didn’t take my report. The police department where the bastard lived said the crime didn’t happen in their jurisdiction, so there was nothing they could do. This was their “document crimes” division. So I went to the police station in my city where the crime took place. We have no document crimes division at all, but no one would take my report because no crime had been committed against me! It had been committed against the bank!
Between two fraudulent credit accounts there was $8,500 in losses. I was really worried that I’d be stuck with this. The banks knew who the guilty was, but didn’t press charges. They opened credit accounts in his name so he could pay them off!
The account reports to the perp’s credit bureau - if they do not pay for it per the account terms, it affects their credit. It’s another way for the bank to recover the funds.
I had someone do that to me too, they copied the card number and exp date when I charged something else. This happened twice.
In neither case did the cops nor the credit card companies do anything, nor did they even want to .
The amounts charged each time per charge were under $200, and they were all interstate charges, buying items over the phone. The cops in the receiving state did not care, and the cops in the vendors state did not care.
It was the vendors who got stiffed - not me.
Since it was interstate, and since they did not get cooperation from the police in the state that the items were sent to, there was nothing they could do but eat their losses.
I dont think this is going to change, credit card theft will not decrease.
The police make much more money writing traffic tickets and arresting marijuanna users to ever want to get involved in credit card theft.
but what about in store camera security etc…? i had multiple purchases on my bill from technology stores, cashback from food stores, petrol etc… all high value goods. surely all they have to do is go to the stores that the charges were made and ask for the camera recordings. since its happened locally i have a few suspect people, mainly the people working the bars/petrol stations i go to.
I’ve read several articles that point to this as one of the major reasons the credit card companies do not pursue fraud more agressively. The transaction risk is borne by the merchant, not the CC company, thus the CC company has less incentive to follow through. The merchant often cannot economically follow through with every instance of fraud also. CC thieves know this and exploit it, and usually only get caught if they return to the same well too often and/or are hopelessy stupid.
Can’t say about the UK, but in the U.S. these cases do indeed get prosecuted, in federal court. The practice descibed in the OP is actively investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office when possible.
A lot of fraud would be prevented if merchants followed V/M guidelines. Verifying signatures for sales, verifying shipping addresses on telephone orders…
Unfortunately (and this comes from eleven years of retail experience), a lot of merchants put sales before security, knowing full well the risks. Every merchant budgets for fraud loss, as well as every bank.
And as stated above, the police do not place high importance on fraud. I personally would love to see the perps arrested, but know it’s very unlikely.
Much of the reason too, is bank issued cards are insured, & banks get their money back. I had ID theft too; someone got a cell phone in my name-cops filled out a report, only because I needed it, for the phone co. to drop charges. If you think cops care, make a stolen car report- in beween donuts & coffee they barely care enough to take a report.