WRITTEN ON July 19th, 2008 BY Ruth Kennedy AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, What do we want?
For I think the fourth time this year our credit card details (including pin number) have been swiped or phished or whatevered from somewhere, and someone’s managed to withdraw a pile of cash (which we never do – given the extra fees for cash advances) and make a few other transactions on our account. Mastercard are ok, they tell us we won’t be liable. Cool. But is this actually reported as a CRIME anywhere or by anyone? The bank doesn’t seem to need me to report it to the police.
I was thinking about this when reading about perceptions of crime this week. I know that crime is reducing overall. But I have never before had a year with four ‘robberies’. Is e-crime added in, either in the actual reported crime stats, or the British Crime Survey?
5 Responses to “e-theft and the crime stats”
My experience of being on the receving end of credit card fraud a few times is that the credit card companies (or at least, the ones I’ve used) don’t automatically report such fraud to the police nor do they tell you that you need to.
It’s only when I’ve really pushed the question that I’ve finally been told by several different companies that they won’t be reporting the crime and that it’s up to me if I wish to.
Ruth,
Very bad luck – I have not had one yet in Scotland this year
I think you must report this to the police. Otherwise, the stats, are tosh, but we know this anyway
Alex
“But is this actually reported as a CRIME anywhere or by anyone? ”
Not since June last year.
Ruth – I suggest you get a Chip-and-Signature card. All the card issuers can issue them, although they may try to pretend that they’re “only for disabled customers”. When used to make a purchase, a C&S card causes the terminal to print out a signature slip, which you sign in the old-fashioned way. There is no PIN to skim. I have a Nationwide C&S card, which I’ve been happily using for four years without any problems.
The current proceedure is that consumers report the incident to their credit card company and they decide if they should report the incident to the police. The E-Victims Organisation, The House of Lords committee on Personal Internet Safety and many other groups have called for this process to be changed so consumers can report the crime to the police.
The police do not gather statistics on e-crime. However, I understand the British Crime Survey are introducing e-crime into the survey.
http://www.e-victims is a non-for-profit website providing advice to victims of e-crime and other online incidents.