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Credit card fraud
Criminals are eager to obtain your credit card details. Learn how to prevent and detect credit card fraud – and what to do if you fall victim to it.
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Experts speak of credit card fraud when someone steals your credit card data and misuses it to make unauthorized purchases or withdrawals. Being a victim of fraud can be both financially and mentally stressful.
Criminals obtain your data in a wide variety of ways:
In the past, card holders were mainly worried that their credit card might be physically stolen and reused. But with digitalization, the risk has increasingly moved online. Consequently, there are more and more methods and opportunities for fraud. Because data is increasingly being stolen and misused digitally, you should take comprehensive steps to protect your credit card.
The methods used by scammers are increasingly varied and technically sophisticated. You should be particularly suspicious if you notice unusual charges on your credit card statement that you did not make or authorize. Always check your statements in detail before you file them at home – only then can you act promptly if you discover fraud.
To stay as well informed as you can beyond the monthly statements, you should also keep an eye on messages from your bank. As a rule, your bank will notify you of any unusual transactions made with your credit card. To further enhance security, you can also enable push notifications for your banking app.
If criminals want to steal your data by email or text message, this is not always easy to detect. The more technical the options criminals have at their disposal, the more similar fake emails or text messages are to those from your bank. Nevertheless, you still have many opportunities to spot potential fraud. Obvious spelling errors are a clear sign of fraudulent emails. The email address used by scammers is usually not a company address or contains transposed letters and numbers. Carefully compare the supposedly genuine email address with that of your bank. Sometimes the differences are tiny. If an email or text message seems suspicious, you should never click on links or open attachments. Only do so if you are absolutely sure the message is genuine. The safest option is always to delete an email. If a request is truly important, the email will be sent again.
Fortunately, you are not the only one responsible for preventing credit card fraud. Financial institutions also take great care to offer the best possible security. The ۶Ƶ Card Center’s (in German) fraud prevention team works 24 hours a day to identify criminal transactions. Our approach involves a symbiosis of the latest technology, which checks unusual transactions in a matter of seconds, and human expertise, which immediately takes control when there is a hit in the system.
The ۶Ƶ Card Center team uses software to check over 500,000 transactions within 24 hours and intervenes as soon as a suspected case of credit card fraud arises. For example, the system once triggered an alert when a client appeared to have used an ATM in Manhattan just six hours after shopping at a boutique in St. Gallen. The system recognized how unrealistic this was and prevented the payout of 200 dollars. The client was immediately informed of the case by phone, and their ۶Ƶ Credit Card was blocked and immediately replaced. At the same time, the software is constantly being improved based on input from employees in order to create an even more accurate early warning system.
The fraud team at the ۶Ƶ Card Center has been successfully preventing credit card fraud for over 20 years. The team has been working with the renowned FICO Falcon platform for the same amount of time. The software scans every transaction in real time and is used not only to detect fraud but also to prevent it. The system is continuously evolving through machine learning and artificial intelligence.
If credit card fraud occurs despite your precautions and the efforts of the bank, you should act immediately. This will protect your finances and, ideally, also catch the perpetrators. Remember the following:
With the digital use of credit cards, the opportunities for fraud are also becoming more widespread. The chances of falling victim to such fraud are greatly reduced if you learn how to protect your card and do your due diligence by always being aware of where your card is located. If you use ۶Ƶ Digital Banking and also set up push notifications, you can be sure that you will be informed of every transaction – and can act immediately in the event of irregularities. You can then continue to shop with your credit card worry-free and with the conviction that you have acted to the best of your knowledge and belief.
Arrange an appointment for a non-binding consultation or if you have any questions, just give us a call.