Rise in Online Fraud

Sky — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:32:37 +0000

Just as every coin has its two sides, modern technology has its advantages as well as disadvantages. Although great convenience has been brought forwards by the Internet to the public mass, the amount of money loss caused by Internet fraudsters have already been revealed to reach a record high.
Due to the greater increase in the number of people shopping on-line, the online banking fraud, which is specifically targeting banking customers, has risen by 185% in the first six months of 2008 due to an increase in phishing attacks and spyware scams.
Nowadays, the phishing scams have grown much more sophisticated and convincing. They used to be easy to spot as they were littered with spelling and grammar mistakes. But now, the websites really looks like the real ones. As a result, the number of phishing incidents has quadrupled in the last two years. Under current guidelines, as long as a customer is not negligent or fraudulent, the bank must offer a refund. However, it has been revealed that in an increasing number of cases, banks are becoming much more reluctant to refund the victims to phishing scams.
On the other hand, credit card fraud also increased greatly by up to 14%. And there is increase in online, phone and mail order shopping frauds, which are known as “card-not-present” frauds.
To help tackle online fraud, the shoppers are urged to protect their computer with up-to-date anti-virus software and only use secure websites.

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Rise in Online Fraud