Scots cities hotspots for credit card fraud

Experts are growing increasingly concerned about the sophisticated techniques used by fraud gangs, with card crime costing the UK 440 million a year and a third of victims not even realising they have been targeted.

Edinburgh was the fifth worst place for credit card fraud in the UK last year, with 31 per cent of people affected, while 24 per cent of Glaswegians were hit, the city coming in tenth.

Card crime in the capital has now risen for four consecutive years, while Glasgow is one of the few cities in the UK to see a noticeable decrease since 2008.

One fifth of victims had their magnetic strip cloned while using chip and PIN machines, a technique that is becoming more common according to CPP, which compiled the study after interviewing 2,009 people.

A similar proportion were defrauded while shopping online, although this has decreased.

Scottish police are so concerned about hi-tech crime they are training a crack team of fraud investigators to tackle emerging threats, such as mortgage scams, identity theft and online crime.

The Scottish Police College has developed a training course to teach people to deal with the most sophisticated types of criminal activity.

The previous fraud courses have been revamped and their capacity doubled, with additional spaces made available for people working in banks and other financial institutions.

Assistant Chief Constable Cliff Anderson, general secretary of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, said: "Police forces across Scotland, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and the financial sector work together to ensure police officers are aware of the latest techniques and devices used by criminals in relation to payment card fraud.

"We will continue to work closely together to tackle payment card fraud and we urge members of the public to remain vigilant, protect your PIN and report anything suspicious to us."

Sarah Blaney, a card fraud expert at CPP, said: "In 2010, we saw a 3 per cent decrease in card fraud incidents in the UK, compared to the previous year. This in itself is good news and shows how progress is being made to reduce the number of victims.

In particular, online fraud has decreased, which could be a result of industry initiatives such as Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode."

Dr Bernard Herdan, head of the, National Fraud Authority, said: "The ongoing decrease in card fraud is a very positive sign that industry safety measures and consumers' ability to self-protect are improving. However, it is important to remind consumers not to become complacent."

The scams …

THE Visa credit card scam does not necessarily involve Visa, but a tell-tale sign is the caller will typically refer to either Visa or Mastercard rather than the victim's bank or building society.

The caller poses as someone from a fraud department, who says they are just calling to check a purchase.

They ask if the victim has bought a random product at a shop, which, of course, they have not, and then promises to refund the account.

They further win trust by quoting information such as the victim's billing address, and giving them an incident reference number.

At the end of the call, they innocuously ask their target to confirm the three-digit number on the signature strip, and it is then the fraud takes place - the rest of call is irrelevant.

Since the introduction of chip and PIN, it is no longer possible to clone a whole card - just the magnetic strip.

The crime is like identity fraud as, rather than physically stealing the card, the thief just copies the information on the strip, through a device inserted in an ATM machine, petrol pump or shop check-out, and then attaches it to another card, which is usually stolen.

The information on the strip does not match that on the stolen card but, as long as that is not checked, the scam can continue unnoticed.

That means the victim can continue using their card, unaware anything is wrong, while someone else also charges purchases to it.