Card fraud goes up 50% to £1.5m in Huddersfield

May 1 2009 by Sam Casey, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

CREDIT and debit card fraud in Huddersfield rocketed 50% last year.

Criminals carried out £1.5m worth of fraudulent transactions in HD postcode areas in 2008, compared to £1m in 2007.

But the figures should not be taken at face value, according to industry experts.

APACS, the UK trade association for card providers, represents the payments industry.

It said the fraud was not necessarily being committed by people in Huddersfield.

A spokeswoman said a sharp increase in online crime meant that fraud carried out elsewhere could be attributed to Huddersfield.

She said: “The figures are calculated in such a way that they can be skewed if there is somewhere in Huddersfield that does a lot of online transactions.

“It means you could be sitting in a house in London making a fraudulent purchase from somewhere that has an office in Huddersfield and that then contributes to Huddersfield’s figure.”

In April last year the Examiner reported how a large number of Huddersfield customers of Nationwide bank had been hit by overseas fraudsters.

Thousands of pounds were stolen from dozens of people by criminals using their card details in the USA, mainly at Wal-Mart stores in Texas.

APACS said this did not have an impact on the fraud figures for Huddersfield.

But the spokeswoman said fraud being committed abroad was one of the growth areas for card crime.

She said: “Two areas have seen an increase – online, phone and mail order fraud and fraud abroad.

“Since the introduction of the chip-and-PIN payment system, lost and stolen card fraud and face-to-face transaction fraud being committed in individual retail outlets have gone down.

“But criminals have resorted to online fraud and fraud abroad, where fraudsters have stolen cards in the UK and taken advantage of the fact that other countries do not have chip-and-PIN to carry out the crime.