In 2016, about 48 per cent of all credit card gross losses occurred inside the borders of South Africa in comparison to the 44,5 per cent in 2015.
Credit card fraud increased by 13 per cent in 2016, with debit card fraud increasing by 3,1 per cent for the same period, according to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre.
Curt Richter, founder and partner at Stop247, has produced a mobile application to prevent his clients’ identities from being stolen and said he assists at least two people with lost or stolen cards in a month and the number sometimes increases.
“We get calls from people who have been a victim of some fraud. Most of them try to report to authorities and they are unable to do so because a bank will need to get a court order to act on fraudulent transactions taking place,” he said.
Anyone who uses a debit, credit or SIM card has chances of falling victim to fraudulent activities and it has become a fast-growing way of conning card holders.
Richter said one afternoon, he had put people to the test, by dropping a credit card on the floor and hid somewhere and witnessed that no one was willing to pick it up and report it.
“Many people at the mall walked as far from it as possible, except children who were the only ones who picked it up. So my company can prevent fraud activities by just using an unstructured supplementary service data, even when it’s not your own phone.”
He further said that most of the time, your credit cards are copied while you are using it at ATMs and toll roads.
Rosebank police Station’s spokesperson, Sergeant Bongi Mdletse, said they are able to make arrests, though these are complicated cases to deal with.
“We send the case to the fraud unit. If we can’t link the person to it after a fraud case has been opened, then we link the person if the victim brings proof that there has been false [sic] misrepresentation.”
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