Cash Machine Fraud On The Rise In Britain
from the money-grows-in-ATMs dept
While banks may not inform some of their customers if their credit card numbers have been stolen, it looks like they're also not doing a perfect job of preventing ATM fraud either (at least in Britain where the problem has almost doubled). Across the pond, Brits withdraw about £144 billion each year, and cash machine fraud hit £61 million in the past year. So really, the problem is a fairly small percentage of the total transaction amounts. But still, it's not like thieves are pulling a Superman III (or Office Space, if you prefer) heist by taking a fraction of a cent on every dollar. A few million here or there should also be a bit of an incentive to improve security measures. Apparently, there are already a few improvements on the way, some of which are not really all that new -- like adding a security chip on the card itself -- and they've reduced fraud by half elsewhere. Though, it's only a matter of time before those measures are breached, but that should give us plenty of time to get used to various biometric technologies.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
