14 pc of Australians have Faced Credit Card Fraud
Posted July 31st, 2009
and last modified December 10th, 2009Credit card fraud is rife in Australia, so much so that 15 per cent of Aussies have been a victim to credit card abusecredit card abuse in the last five years alone – that amounts to one in seven people! New technology however has been introduced to stop credit card fraud with chip technology.
The findings were revealed in a recent survey done by ACI Worldwide, who is a provider of application software for electronic payments. The company surveyed a total of 2409 people from all around the world and 301 of those were living in Australia.
Questions such as: “Have you been a victim of fraud on your credit or debit card in the past five years?” were asked in the survey. One in ten surveyed Aussies experienced fraud on their credit cards once, 2.58 per cent experienced credit card fraud twice and 1.29 per cent felt the sting of deception three times.
For an unlucky 0.64 per cent, fraud on their cards happened more than three times. It is interesting to note that even so these findings are disturbing and worrisome, other countries like the United States and the United Kingdom were faring worse than us.
In both the UK and US a total of 27 per cent were hit by credit card fraud. Dubai showed seven per cent, Germany eight per cent and Singapore and China 15 per cent.
It was predicted by the survey that Australia “should see a further decrease of fraud in the next three years as most of the cardholder bases are moving to chip authentication.”
The APCA (Australian Payments Clearing Association) reported that between January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008, a total of $144.7 million in charge card and credit card fraud had been committed in Australia and overseas on Australian-issued cards.
This was a rise of 18.6 for every 100,000 transactions during 2007 to 21.8 per 100,000 transactions in 2008 for credit card abuse. Conversely, debit card fraud dropped from 2.3 in 2007 to 1.7 in 2008 for the same amount of transactions.
David Nussenbaum, vice president, ACI Worldwide said: “The international research we have conducted shows that although card fraud trends vary around the world, it is still a persistent problem for banks.”
Source: ITNews.com.au
What can I do to protect myself against credit card fraud?
Concerned over the security of your credit card? Read more into our guide to protecting yourself from credit card scams and theft.
If you find your credit card has had unauthorised transactions on it, you need to report it to your bank straight away.
If you report within the first couple of business days, the issue should be hastily resolved and any funds reimbursed if necessary.
This is why it pays off to be checking your recent transactions of your credit card on a frequent basis.
Related posts:
- Australians saving $463 a month
- Help For Victims Of Identity Fraud
- Australian’s Suffering Credit Card Fraud: What Can You Do?
- Australian Credit Card Fraud Statistics
- Our Rubbish Puts Two In Three Australians In Danger Of Identity Theft!
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