Fraud and identity theft
The fraudulent use of our network is mainly the result of identity fraud – from the purchase of mobile phone contracts in our stores to credit-card payments for our various services.
Fear of internet crime is on the increase, according to the second report called ‘Get Safe Online’ (October, 2006). The report revealed that 21 per cent of people think e-crime is a type of crime they are most likely to encounter – up from 17 per cent last year – and they fear it more than mugging, car theft and burglary.
In all cases we will immediately disconnect the phone in question and take steps to prevent further fraud, including sharing information with all operators in the UK credit industry.
Identity fraud, where the purchaser uses false documents to support their application, is a high priority but hard to detect.
Although a welcome pack will alert the ‘real’ purchaser to an identity fraud, we also use a range of profiling techniques to quickly detect such crime and to act accordingly.
Control of credit-card fraud became more pressured in 2006, largely due to new compulsory ‘chip and pin’ systems in UK retail stores. These have diverted fraudsters to the use of the internet, and other ‘remote’ payment channels, for their transactions.
In addition to card-issuer authentication and screening transactions, we may limit the amount of top-up credit a user can buy at any one time. This reduces our losses from fraud.
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