Are police taking credit card fraud seriously?

June 29, 2007

With the new law stating that credit card fraud can no longer be reported to the police, is it really showing that police are not taking the problem seriously? That is what some consumers think and whilst originally people thought these new changes could be a benefit to the system, now they are wondering what the true cause behind the change actually is.

The new law took force from April 2007 and banks have now been given the authority to choose which cases should be passed onto the police. Some people think that this is an excellent idea as banks were originally unable to do anything about the cases of fraud which were presented to it. Now they have the power to actually do something before the police get involved. However, the critics say that this is simply a lack of care on the police department’s part.

In fact some are even saying that this new change in the law has something to do with police trying to reduce the crime figures. Under pressure from the government, would the police really pass on the buck to the banks just to ensure that crime figures stayed low? Well it could certainly be looked upon that way and many consumers are simply not happy.

It is thought that an estimated £430 million was lost last year due to credit card fraud. This is because police simply do not have the resources to investigate every case of fraud reported to them. This is partly why they have given banks more leverage with the claims they choose to pass on for investigation. They are hoping that it will improve the amount of fraudsters which they catch in the act and that the banks will be able to deal with the smaller cases themselves.

Overall only time will tell if this new law will make a huge difference in the amount of fraud reported and whether it was the best action to take or not.