'UK's top ten cities for fraud named'
February 19, 2010 at 3:39 pm
According to recent research carried out by card protection specialists, CPP, the Welsh capital is now Britain’s number one card fraud hotspot. Cardiff has stolen this dubious accolade from London, knocking it into second position. Numbers 3, 4 and 5 on the black list are Norwich, Southampton and Leeds. Other cities featuring in the Top 10 are Newcastle, Plymouth, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Nottingham.
37% of Cardiff’s residents have fallen victim to card fraud at least once in the last year and London is not far behind with a rate of 35%. Overall, card fraud in the UK was up by 8% last year with an extra 2.7 million victims over the last two years.
On average just over £590 is siphoned off each time a card is misused, although 16% of victims have over £1,000 stolen. The fraudster’s favourite spend is electronic goods (13% of cases), whilst clothing accounts for 10% and holidays 7% of card crimes.
You may well wonder how this can happen. It seems that online card fraud is the most common scenario with 32% of cases arising in this way. Another 17% of victims had their cards cloned at a cash point or when using a Chip and PIN device, whilst a worrying 34% do not know how it happened. In many instances the first indication of anything being awry was when the victim received a call from their bank (43%).
Tips to prevent card fraud include the following:
- Take good care of your cards and don’t carry more cards than necessary
- Do not let them out of your sight e.g. in a shop or restaurant, in case they are cloned
- Never write down your PIN
- Do not let anyone else use your card
- Contact your bank as soon as you suspect a problem and make sure the bank has your contact details for emergencies
