How common are debit or credit card fraudulent transactions?

enthusiasticsaver

We bank with Santander and keep a large balance in our current account as it pays interest. Consequently I check online each day and this week for first time ever saw a transaction neither me nor my husband had made for a large amount.

I rang Santander fraud who said they would look into it, spoke to me and my husband and told us my husbands card had been used fraudulently and they had also blocked another large transaction. They refunded it straight away and stopped my husbands card and reissued a new one.

Has anyone else been targeted as I just wondered how common this is?

We pride ourselves on being very careful with our cards and not letting them out of our sights so goodness only knows when it was hacked. This has never happened before as well.

I am just glad I checked the account and reported it quickly.

PeacefulWaters

In the great scheme of things it's a tiny fraction of a per cent of transactions that are fraudulent.

That said, during a lifetime I'd expect the majority of people to suffer a fraud on their banking facilities at least once.

The good news being that the bank stands the loss.

brewerdave

Touch wood,I've never had a problem with debit cards/current accounts......but I've had fraud attempted via credit card on 3 separate occasions.
As for OP, I check my current accounts and credit card accounts 6 days a week - only takes ~ 3 or 4 minutes first thing, and gives some peace of mind:)

JuicyJesus

I've had precisely one instance of card fraud in my life, a £20 O2 topup in mid 2010. Refunded the same day.

Card fraud happens regularly but is not that common. People being careless with their card/details/PIN is far, far more common.

agrinnall

Here you go, all the facts and figures on UK card fraud, knock yourself out!

http://www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/plastic_fraud_figures/

zerog

To my knowledge I haven't had any fraud happen to me yet, so I'm just waiting...

Pound

I had it happen to me on two different cards within a few days. Both cards within my possession.

About-time

It's happened to me twice. Once about ten years ago, a transaction for about £250 to a website I didn't recognise, which turned out to be somebody playing online poker with my card details.


Then again a year or two ago - several authorisations for all sorts of random things including the Land Registry and a carpet shop in America. They were all for very small amounts, a pound or less, so I guess that was somebody just testing the details before going for something bigger.

brewerdave

On the 3 occasions that I had problems, they were all "customer not present" types - I assume that they were telephone purchases (altho' my cc suppliers would not confirm) - on one occasion, the "fraudulent" purchases were very random - a course of driving lessons, a year's sub to a sports club etc - don't think those were true frauds as they would have been difficult to take advantage of - the last occasion ,however, was a top of the range Apple Mac purchase!!

Katiehound

The big scam that involved Tesco current a/cs (last year??) somehow involved debit cards.
It was never revealed exactly what happened- well no, that would give folk a heads up-but it involved debit cards that had been activated. My second card continues to be inactive!

Uxb

At the time given that some were "done" who had never ever used the card, the scale of and targeted nature of the compromise, the general consensus on the web was that it most probably a data leak at the card processing/manufacturing plant.