Credit card fraud has its origins right alongside credit
cards. As long as there have been credit cards available popularly, there has been
the desire to misuse them for unfair monetary gain. Credit card fraud refers to
all such misuse, by which a credit card is used to fraudulently provide money
for a transaction. Sometimes, this takes the simple version of using a credit
card to pay for something which one cannot truly afford, thereby ensuring that
the items in question were essentially stolen, as it is unlikely that payment
will ever be made for those items. But it can take other forms, as well. Credit
card fraud can be directly linked to identity theft, in situations where stolen
credit cards are used to provide money. This is actually the most common form
of credit card fraud, and the form against which most credit card fraud
protection is oriented.
Because of the advent of the Internet and online
shopping, credit card fraud would seem to be more easily perpetrated than ever
before. The primary, easiest method of committing credit card fraud is simply
by stealing someone’s credit card, and using it for illegal purchases. There
are other methods, including using ill-gotten information, such as in an
instance where a sales clerk might save sales receipts with credit card numbers
on them, that he might later take advantage of the information; these are
genuinely slightly more complex, and require the perpetrator to begin in a
position of power. But now, as one enters credit card information into
computers and websites regularly, in order to make purchases online, that
information can be accessed from afar, by hackers and others who would simply
tap into your information through the Internet.
Yet, the Federal Trade Commission has reported that
credit card fraud has actually decreased in its percentage of all identity
theft crimes for the sixth year running. This could partly be due to the
overall increase of identity theft crimes, but it could also be due to
successful use of credit card fraud protection systems. Some credit card fraud
protection schemes are simple systems on the cards to help increase the
encryption and thereby prevent credit card fraud; the small security code on
the backs of most modern credit and debit cards falls into this domain. Credit
card fraud protection also includes monitoring of your credit accounts by the
credit card companies; if they see an unusual, sudden increase in activity,
then they can get in touch with the card’s owner to verify the transactions,
and ensure that there is no credit card fraud going on.
Though these credit card fraud protection measures would
not prevent credit card fraud, there are also an increasing number of
protective systems that will prevent credit card fraud from affecting the
victim. In the United States, for instance, card holders can only be held
liable for $50 of fraudulent charges made on a lost credit card, at most, and
credit card companies are often willing to waive even this, in return for a
signed confirmation from the card holder that the charges are, indeed,
fraudulent. If the number is stolen, but the card is not lost, then victims are
liable for $0 of the fraudulent charges. These credit card fraud protection
measures do help to prevent the overall damage caused by credit card fraud, as
too often the ones who pay most from such fraud are the individual card holding
victims, and not the companies. Furthermore, credit card companies’ ability to
simply eliminate charges from the card helps to add a back-up layer of credit
card fraud protection.
The battle between those who would commit credit card
fraud and those who would seek its prevention will likely continue on, however,
as any protection system that could ensure absolute protection would also
likely be unreasonably restrictive.
