“I lost 2,000 euros in this story”, admits a student victim of bank card fraud

A trap that lasted two hours. Adélie*, a 22-year-old student, was the victim of credit card fraud last week. “It all started when I got a call showing my bank number,” says the girl. On the other end of the line, “A woman calls me a banking advisor. It has all my information, my name, my first name, my address and also the 4 digits of my bank card…”.

So Adele is confident. “She explains to me that my bank suspects fraudulent transactions in my account and asks me if I’m genuine… while announcing astronomical amounts. She tells me she’s going to block everything, using banking terms. is, so I’m not suspicious,” the girl continues. The fake advisor then asks him to “validate the code via SMS to block the famous operation”. The student doesn’t know it yet, but the codes and confirmations he just provided actually allow the scammer to validate fraudulent transactions on his accounts.

Enhancing practices

Like Adele, many French men and women are increasingly falling victim to these scams. The Banque de France indicates that payment fraud increased by 16.9% in volume and 5.4% in value in the first half of 2023.

About 4.1 million fraudulent transactions (+16.9% compared to the first half of 2022) represent a total loss of 628 million euros (+5.4%) in the first half of 2023, in the context of an overall increase in the amount of payments (+8) %). This represents an ocean drop of 16.1 billion transactions made by transfer, direct debit, card payment or even check during the same period.

According to the latest figures reported by the organization, credit cards represent 93% of fraud by volume, which can be explained by the fact that it is the “preferred means of payment of the French” (61.9% of transactions). If it remains the most fraudulent means of payment in value (256.5 million euros), its share will no longer constitute “only” 42% of the amount defrauded. Transfers and checks account for 24% and 29% of the fraudulent amounts, respectively.

Secure card payments

All this data, collected by the Payment Means Security Observatory (OSMP), which brings together public authorities, banks and consumers under the auspices of the Banque de France, confirms the importance of securing payments through maps. “The Observatory welcomes the reduction in fraud rates across almost all card payment initiation channels,” he announced in a press release.

The organization is “particularly” pleased that the “fraud rate on internet payments” continues to decline, thanks to the “implementation of strong authentication”. “Everyday payments”, especially at traditional terminals, “benefit from a fraud rate that is very controlled, generally low and stable in the long term”, added Dennis Bue, president of OSMP.

Bank’s role after the scam

“I lost 2,000 euros in this story, but my bank doesn’t want to reimburse me, because I authorized the withdrawal,” says an exhausted Adeli. What is a bank’s role with its customer after a scam? According to Article 133-18 of the Monetary and Financial Code, the banking institution must immediately reimburse you the amount debited and any fees, but in certain cases the bank may refuse to reimburse you in full, especially if it considers it serious and proven. Negligence on the part of its customer.

For his part, Dennis Bue called on banks to “continue their efforts” to reduce this fraud by encouraging them to pick up checkbooks from branches, a safer method than sending them. He also asked them to “simplify the procedures” for filing protests, recommending handling “as much liquidity as is on the card” and without “excessive formality”, with some banks still requiring a registered letter to be sent. .

*First name has been changed