Australia's Card Skimming Jumps 400 Per Cent
Losses by Australian banks to credit card skimming have risen by more than 400 per cent in the past year, and the crime is now estimated to cost consumers, banks and merchants AD 300 million a year. Card skimming by organized rings may worsen, according to the Australian Crime Commission (ACC), as ôthe limitations in the Australian national law enforcement response to card skimming [may encourage] trans-national groups à to Australiaö. Current laws, for example, still allow the importation of skimmers, embossing machines and credit card blanks, but the ACC is calling for closer co-operation with police.Given that an organized gang in Taiwan had recently sold full sets of credit card information on over a million bank customers to crime syndicates, the ACC perceives card skimming as ôa high-impact threatö as its perpetrators are often involved in drug trafficking, identity crime and money laundering. Organized groups have used portable card skimmers to obtain credit card data at gas stations, restaurants and in taxis, before selling this data to gangs in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Thailand, where it was transferred to plastic cards bearing the logos of Australian banks, before making fraudulent purchases.
The ACC also found that crime rings in Canada, Malaysia and Europe had tapped into data cables at department stores, to steal credit card and EFTPOS data, before importing the resulting, fake cards into Australia. ôFrom some of the material [the ACC] has gathered so far, it would seem that since 2001, the problem of card skimming and card fraud has migrated to Australiaö, concluded cybercrime co-ordinator, Scott McLeod, who cited a MasterCard advisory in 2001, that this would happen. To try and minimize the social impact of card fraud, the Australian Bankers Association is now running a public education campaign. Related Links:
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