Are You At Risk From Internet Credit Card Fraud?The general perception of the public is that internet credit card fraud is rife. This might have been much more likely to be the case perhaps around 1998 - 2001, but is much less of a problem now. Of course, the myth lives on... In the early days of the web, there were far less websites, merchants and visitors. The web was a different place. Website scammers have been targeted by banks and credit card firms to shut down abuse and make the web safer for everyone generally. At this point, it is worth pointing out that it is in the interests of credit card firms, genuine online retailers and governments to make the web as safe as possible for us. The rate of growth in broadband access and the numbers - and value of - online transactions is staggering. Quite simply, there is too much money being spent online these days for it to still be like the Wild West. Big firms want and need for us to trust the internet. In conjunction with this growth in traffic, has been a improvement in the quality of protection software. This software comes in the form of firewalls, anti-virus, spam filters and much more. For online transactions with reputable merchants, their shopping card technology is generally incredibly secure. Hackers will not be getting in. This does create some troubling problems though. Online credit card fraud does still happen in various ways even though the technology suggests that it shouldn't happen. Why is this? Human intervention or human error are the main culprits. And the human error part is you and I - us the users. Thousands of people give their credit card details to others in unsecure ways online. We at Combat-Identity-Theft.com don't believe that they deserve to be scammed or defrauded, but in the modern age, people really ought to know better. The human intervention is likely that someone involved in a credit card transaction via the web uses card details. This happens in a minute percentage of transactions, but it does still happen. Typical situations might be that certain members of staff at a company have access to the database on which online transaction details are stored. You can guess the rest.
What does all this mean in practice? This overview suggests that reducing the likelyhood of becoming a victim of internet credit card fraud can be realised by simply not giving your financial and card details to others. Sounds simple huh? With encryption technology that NASA or the NSA would struggle to break guarding our details, fraudsters resort to doing it 'the old fashioned way'. This page from the US Dept of Justice offers great prevention suggestions. To read more about credit card fraud prevention, please follow these links:
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