Since the introduction of chip-and-pin last year the amount of Internet fraud seen by online merchants has increased dramatically. Over Christmas we were taken by surprise and lost most of our profits in November and December to credit card fraud. In fact had the losses continued as the same rate the company would have been broke by Easter. Fortunately after Christmas the onslaught subsided and much tighter security has brought it back to acceptable levels.
The character of the fraud has also changed. Before there was almost nothing from the UK and most bogus transactions had quite a high value so were easy to spot. Now transaction values can be quite trivial and delivery addresses in the UK have become much more common. It is almost as though there is a section of society who use stolen credit card details to fund all their purchases, buying everything they need with other people’s money. And why not, the chance of being caught is negligible. Credit card companies do not pursue these criminals and have no incentive to do so as long as the merchant carries the can.
But we have found that all is not as bleak as it first seems. There is quite a lot you can do to protect yourself. Apart from sharing our experience this blog also invites comments from others