Credit card fraud is a wide-ranging term for theft and fraud committed using a credit card or any similar payment mechanism as a fraudulent source of funds in a transaction. The purpose may be to obtain goods without paying, or to obtain unauthorized funds from an account. Credit card fraud is also an adjunct to identity theft. According to the Federal Trade Commission, while identity theft had been holding steady for the last few years, it saw a 21 percent increase in 2008. However, credit card fraud, that crime which most people associate with ID theft, decreased as a percentage of all ID theft complaints for the sixth year in a row.
The cost of card fraud in 2006 were 7 cents per 100 dollars worth of transactions (7 basis points). Due to the high volume of transactions this translates to billions of dollars. In 2006, fraud in the United Kingdom alone was estimated at £535 million, or US$750–830 million at prevailing 2006 exchange rates.
Read more about Credit Card Fraud: Origins, Stolen Cards, Compromised Accounts, Fraudulent Charge-back Schemes, Famous Credit Fraud Attacks, Countermeasures
Famous quotes containing the words credit, card and/or fraud:
“If you want to be on good terms with everyone in this world, sell goods on credit and never ask for payment.”
—Chinese proverb.
“In the game of “Whist for two,” usually called “Correspondence,” the lady plays what card she likes: the gentleman simply follows suit. If she leads with “Queen of Diamonds,” however, he may, if he likes, offer the “Ace of Hearts”: and, if she plays “Queen of Hearts,” and he happens to have no Heart left, he usually plays “Knave of Clubs.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)