Скачать 0.99 Mb.
|
Card Fraud: The Great Credit Card Swindle. When it was introduced four years ago, the chip and pin system was hailed as the silver bullet that might finally stem the rising tide of credit and debit card fraud. Security experts predicted that the electronic process, which replaced the old signature system, would make it much more difficult for criminals to hijack our credit cards. The truth, however, is that several aspects of card fraud continue to spiral as the criminals’ scams become more and more sophisticated. Latest figures from the industry body Financial Fraud Action UK reveal that the incidence of card ID theft has increased by 23 per cent in the past year, while online banking fraud is up by 55 per cent. One of the classic fraud techniques is known as “skimming”, where the information on a card’s magnetic strip is illegally copied. These details can then be used to create a fake or “cloned” card, which can be used around the world to run up charges on your account. There are many ways that a card can be skimmed. It can occur in even the most reputable shops and restaurants. Freelance photographer Ian Griffiths had £2,700 stolen from his account after a night out. It was only two weeks after dining at a luxury restaurant near Loch Lomond that father- of-three Mr Griffiths, 48, realised his debit card had been cloned. “I was away travelling and I had a phone call from Barclays asking me if I had managed to be in Cologne, Florence, Rome, Dublin and Madrid all on the same day,” says Mr Griffiths. “I told them I was in Dudley in the West Midlands. They’d placed a stop on the card as more than £2,700 had been spent on it. “It had been cloned when I’d been in Scotland two weeks earlier. Several other people had had their cards cloned in the same restaurant. It turned out they’d had an Eastern European waitress there for a short period – and that was it. The fraudsters worked very quickly, not making any huge purchases, so that it wouldn’t raise the alarm. “It was the computer that picked up that all these purchases were being made in places that were thousands of miles apart.” Although skimming is the most basic card scam, criminal gangs are dreaming up new techniques every week. The phony fraud alert has become especially rife. Unsuspecting cardholders are duped into handing over card and PIN details to a person pretending to be from the bank, card company or even the police. Victims are hustled over the phone and then conned into handing over their card and PIN number to a motorcycle courier. Katy Worobec, head of fraud control with Financial Fraud Action, says: “Fraudsters have been targeting particular groups of cardholders. So far some of the victims have included pensioners but now it’s clear that the scam is becoming more widespread.” Petrol stations are particularly vulnerable to skimming, where more card fraud occurs than in any other type of retail outlet. They have a high turnover of part-time staff and a corrupt cashier can skim hundreds of cards in a single week. Free-standing cash machines inside petrol stations and newsagents are also an easy target as it is very simple to attach a skimming device to the machines when the store is closed. In one of the biggest scams to hit Britain, almost an entire village had their cards cloned after the card reader was hijacked in the local Jet garage. More than 500 debit and credit cards were cloned from villagers in in Leicestershire and then used by gangs around the world to steal £175,000. Garage owner Jim Funnell, 62, says: “We had a Sri Lankan who had been a full-time member of staff for over a year. He was one of the best members of staff that we’ve ever had and used to open the bowling for our local cricket team. “He was so well liked among customers that it became difficult to appreciate what had gone on.” Over a period of weeks, the garage’s chip and pin reader was substituted with an identical machine that copied the details of every card that was swiped. These details were then sent back to the gang’s base in Sri Lanka before being used to withdraw thousands of pounds in countries as far afield as Australia, Senegal, India, Canada and the Philippines. “We got the police in straight away and told them something had happened but we didn’t know what,” said Mr Funnell. “That particular member of staff went missing. We got done ourselves. There were members of my family who were victims. “Initially, nobody believed that this man could have been part of it. All his references and ID cards, it all looked legitimate. “His references had checked out really well. It was unfortunate in my case that it happened just before Christmas in 2007. “One of the problems was people were queueing up doing their Christmas shopping and they had a couple of hundred quid’s worth of stuff in their trolley and all of a sudden their cards didn’t work because their accounts had been cleaned out.” Online card fraud has rocketed in the past year as thousands of people continue to be duped by so-called “phishing” e-mails. These fake e-mails usually pretend to be from banks or other financial institutions and contain some spurious reason for a cardholder to hand over their details. In the more sophisticated scams, gangs use a type of software known as “spyware”, which spies on a coputer. In another version, key-loggers record what keys are pressed on a keyboard. A spokesman with Financial Fraud Action UK warned: “The increase in online fraud was due largely to criminals employing more sophisticated methods to target online banking customers. “They’re targeting vulnerabilities in the customers’ computers rather than the banks’ own highly securitised systems which have proved more difficult for the fraudsters to attack.” How to avoid card fraud – and what to do if you’re a victim:
(from Express , January , 2010)
|
Учебного пособия «Grammar and Vocabulary. Pre-intermediate to intermediate.», «Guide to Country Studies» | Словарь-приложение к комплекту пособий "Market Leader. Intermediate Business English" – М.: Мфти, 2003 | ||
К сожалению, мы до сих пор не получили компьютеры «optima-133», которые являются частью нашего заказа. Мы будем благодарны, если... | |||
К сожалению, мы до сих пор не получили компьютеры «optima-133», которые являются частью нашего заказа. Мы будем благодарны, если... | Языковое бытие человека и этноса: психолингвистический и когнитивный аспекты. Материалы IV международных Березинских чтений. Вып.... | ||
В58 Русский язык. Дидактические материалы. 10— 11 классы : базовый уровень / А. И. Власенков, Л. М. Рыбченкова. — М. Просвещение,... | |||
Я язык в социокультурном пространстве и времени: материалы Всероссийской конф с международным участием (г. Астрахань, 13 – 14 октября... | Ппэ экзаменационные материалы на бумажном или электронном носителях, фотографировать экзаменационные материалы |
Поиск Главная страница   Заполнение бланков   Бланки   Договоры   Документы    |