Europol Payment Card Fraud Prevention Alert

On 19 April 2012 Europol (O5 Forgery of Money and Cybercrime) published an updated public information leaflet on preventing payment card fraud.

The leaflet is intended to prevent payment card fraud from happening to any cardholder, especially during the holiday seasons when people are likely to use their cards in places they are not always familiar with and are therefore more vulnerable to fraud by default.

Along with general advice it provides specific advice for cardholders covering:

• Cash machines (ATMs)
• Payment Terminals (POS)
• Travel (Hotels, Bars, Restaurants)
• What to do if you become a victim of Payment Card Fraud or ID Theft

It can be downloaded from the 'Other Links' page of the website of the European ATM Security Team, under the heading 'Europol'.  It's worth a look!

Cash trapping drives European ATM Fraud incidents up 63%

According to the European ATM Security Team (EAST), cash trapping incidents significantly increased during 2011, while skimming incidents and ATM related fraud losses fell. Total ATM related fraud incidents increased 63% from 12,383 in 2010, to 20,244 in 2011.  Cash trapping accounted for 10,808 incidents, up from just 240 in 2010.  During a cash trapping attack criminals prevent cash from a genuine transaction being dispensed – and then remove it when the cardholder has left the ATM.  Incidences of card skimming fell by 26% to the lowest level since 2008.

The good news is that losses due to ATM related fraud attacks fell by 13% from €268 million to €234million, driven by a continued reduction in losses due to card skimming attacks, which fell 13% from €267million to €232 million.