UK Credit Card Fraud Hotspots Named

Research carried out by an Internet firm has revealed that London, Manchester and Kilmarnock come top of the table for card-not-present fraud.

Internet crime consultancy firm, Early Warning, arrived at their findings after carrying out analysis of postcodes where card-not-present (CNP) fraud had originated from.

Using highly localised postcodes, it was discovered that certain districts of London have seen much higher levels of the crime than others, including Thamesmead where "whole streets are involved in the crime," and, Ilford and Romford in Essex, and Twickenham in Middlesex also.

In order to find out where these crimes originated from, Early Warning concentrated on where goods, that were obtained fraudulently, where delivered rather than where the victims lived.

Smaller towns such as Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Northampton and Stockport were all identified as potential future hotspots for credit card fraud as they have reported an increase of card fraud such as CNP and skimming.

The surprise statistic is the Scottish Town of Kilmarnock as it has a relatively small population of 43,000 and it’s therefore a shock it should come out ahead in the card fraud stakes ahead of larger towns and cities.

Early Warnings Andrew Godwill said: “ We weren’t surprised when we realised that London had come out on top of the fraudsters’ league table, with several postcode areas showing a ‘very high’ incidence of fraudulent CNP purchases.

“ What is surprising is the fact that some postcode areas both inside and outside the Capital that last year recorded only negligible numbers of frauds are now reporting 'low' or 'medium' numbers. No single area of the UK is untouched by this problem.”

The rise in CNP fraud can partly be attributed to the introduction of the Chip-and-Pin scheme, which has forced raudsters to concentrate on CNP fraud as normal card scams have become more difficult to commit due to the relative success of Chip-and-Pin.

Figures released by APACS (the UK payments association) estimate CNP fraud to be £183m for 2005, and they expect this figure to rise despite overall credit card levels falling.

Alisdair Milton
9th September 2006

More Information:

• Choosing & Using - free advice from the APACS site
• Money Laid Bare
• Identity Theft
  Identity theft is a major issue in the UK, and with good reason. It has been estimated that it can take up to sixty hours of work to recover a stolen identity, and in the worst cases, cost up to £8000 to put right. But what can be dome to prevent this?

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