Just as explained above, fraud related to payment card is a misuse of confidential information obtained by a person without the permission and agreement of another person. Generally, there are several methods of identifying thefts which are employed as a source of fraud through payment. Following are some common methods which are utilized by criminals for obtaining personal information:

Stolen or Lost Wallet: Most of the people carry identification cards and band cards in their wallets. And this information can be utilized for committing fraud or it can just be sold to criminals. Fraud associated with payment card is normally a result of stolen or lost purse or wallet.

Shoulder Surfing: Observation techniques can be simply utilized by identity thieves such as looking over the shoulder of a person for acquiring personal information when an individual is filling out a form or is using a PIN number. Particularly, shoulder surfing is effective in different crowded places because it makes it simpler and easier to observe a person.

Dumpster Diving: In general, dumpster diving is quite a renowned method of using identity theft. Garbage often contains important information and thieves dig through it to find this information such as medicals statements, insurance, bank statements, and credit card offers. For instance, a person might leave his receipt in the garbage without tearing it and it might include important information which could be utilized by hackers for obtaining personal information. Personal papers which are carelessly thrown away can provide significant information which is sufficient enough for hacker for stealing identity information. Other than customers, organizations and businesses such as profitable corporations, accounting firms, and hospitals seem to discard millions of papers every single year which contain personal information (Jha, et al., 2012).

Commonly, reasonable steps are not taken for destroying confidential identification and financial information which are issued by several entities of government. Consequently, personal information is acquired by criminals. To this issue, the simple solutions are the utilization of shredder for destroying papers and documents which contain personal information, which might be utilized fraudsters.

Mail Theft: The mail is intercepted by fraudsters for stealing debit cards or credit cards, tax forms, and bank statements. Mail theft from organizations is also increasing at a significantly rate. Outgoing and incoming mail can contain confidential information, payroll records, bank statements, bank cards, and the CPA of firm.

Imposters: The identity of a person can be adopted by a thief and he can pose as that person for committing identity theft. For instance, in several Californian raids, uniforms of employees were found among stolen mails. It suggested that impersonating a person is a tactic of thieves. In general, another example is pre-texting when a bank is called by a customer for obtaining personal information.

Workplace or Home: Co-workers, friends, and family members can utilize personal information in workplaces and homes. It has been determined that fraud victims often know their victims in a personal manner. That is why; sensitive information must be guarded by consumers in every situation regardless of their environment.

Inside Sources: As explained above, thieves are normally acquaintances as they know their victims in a personal manner, and when it comes to organizations, personal information which is obtained by thieves has the source of dishonest employees who have an issue with the firm. They are responsible for providing sensitive information to hackers. It has been identified that more than eighty percent of the institutions in the UK and the US have been affected by fraud committed by employees (Patidar & Sharma, 2011).

Data Breaches: Actually, the Internet and new technologies have offered criminals new opportunities for obtaining personal information associated with consumers. Hacking is one of the professional and sophisticated methods of stealing information. For instance, fraudulent hackers have been capable of cracking into the databases of payment card processors, financial institutions, schools, hospitals, and online retailers, and even governmental agencies for gaining an access to personal information of consumers for the objectives of fraud and using payment cards (Chlotia, 2011).

This has influenced the safety of countless around the world and there is no doubt that people in various nations have suffered from thefts. In addition, there are several incidents as well which have been recorded that involved hacking. For instance, it has been reported by Maxx Organization that approximately 45.7 million debit and credit card numbers were stolen in addition to 455,000 return records of merchandise which contained the license numbers of consumers. It was revealed by GE Money that it had suffered from several hacking attacks and they also affected the organization. There also has been a case about Albert Gonzalez who was responsible for breaking into the Systems of Heartland Payment. This incident influences approximately 130 million debit and credit cards. In the recent years, the number of threat attacks has increased and several organizations have faced numerous difficulties in securing the information of their customers. For instance, an employee can misplace data, and it can be acquired by a hacker who has intentions of stealing information and harming the firm.

Whenever it comes to credit cards and payments associated with them, it is critical to ensure that data is carefully handled, transported, and stored (Chaudhary, et al., 2012).

Skimming: In general, the most common type of fraud associated with payment card includes skimming the details of card. Actually, skimming is copying the data which is held in the strip of a payment card. Usually, it can be found in the payment card’s back. Then, this data is utilized for making purchases where the card is not present. This crime type is quite difficult to identify since victims might not even be aware of the payments until they receive their statement. It is possible for skimming to occur at both ATM machines and point-of-sale. The card would be utilized by corrupted workers with a device which is capable of recording the data inscribed on magnetic strip. It is also possible that the skimming device might be placed in the cash machine’s slot as it would allow the hacker to copy the data and utilize it for making payments. In addition to it, a tiny camera is also placed right above the pad of PIN which is also recorded and can be utilized in a fraudulent transaction (Darmawan, 2017).

Often, skimmed data is collected from numerous cards and is sold to different organizations who utilize it for making cloned cards. It has been determined that these cards then used for making payments without even the consent of the actual owner. Additionally, the person is not aware of it until he receives messages and sometimes, these details are not sent to the person.

Phishing: In general, a more sophisticated technique for hacking is phishing, which enables criminals to find financial and personal information through different schemes of phishing. Even though the loss from this method is comparatively low, it is generally one of the most rapidly growing crimes in several countries including the UK. It usually involves emails which look authentic and are sent from service providers, banks, and businesses. However, these emails are not correct (Fu, et al., 2016).

References of To what extent does payment card fraud affect the UK users?

Accountants, C. I. o. M., 2018. Fraud risk management. ResearhGate, pp. 1-48.

Actionfraud, 2019. Store card fraud. [Online]
Available at: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/a-z-of-fraud/store-card-fraud

Auditors, I., 2017. Managing the business risk of fraud. Science Direct, pp. 1-79.

Businessinsider, 2019. There's a good chance you're a victim of credit card scams and you don't even know it — here's what to do. [Online]
Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/credit-card-fraud-scam-what-to-do-2018-8

Chaudhary, K., Yadav, J. & Mallick, B., 2012. A review of fraud detection techniques: Credit card. International Journal of Computer Applications, 45(1), pp. 39-44.

Chaudhary, K., Yadav, J. & Mallick, B., 2012. A review of fraud detection techniques: Credit card. International Journal of Computer Applications, 45(1), pp. 39-44.

Chlotia, P. G. M. N., 2011. A longitudinal analysis of data breaches. Information management and comupter security, 19(4), pp. 216-230.

Consumerprotect, 2019. 11 Common types of credit card frauds and scams. [Online]
Available at: https://www.consumerprotect.com/crime-fraud/11-types-of-credit-card-fraud-scams/

Darmawan, S., 2017. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SKIMMING TECHNIQUE TOWARDS STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION. ResearchGate, Volume 5, pp. 2089-3345.

Finance, U., 2019. Fraud the facts 2019. Science Direct, pp. 1-53.

Fu, K., Cheng, D., Tu, Y. & Zhang, L., 2016. Credit card fraud detection using convolutional neural networks. International Conference on Neural Information Processing, pp. 483-490.

Jha, S., Guillen, M. & Westland, J. C., 2012. Employing transaction aggregation strategy to detect credit card fraud. Expert systems with applications, 39(16), pp. 12650-12657.

Moneyadviceservice, 2019. What is credit card fraud and how can I prevent it. [Online]
Available at: https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/blog/what-is-credit-card-fraud-how-prevent-it

Nga, J. K., Yong, L. H. & Sellappan, R., 2011. The influence of image consciousness, materialism and compulsive spending on credit card usage intentions among youth. Young Consumers, 12(3), pp. 243-253.

Patidar, R. & Sharma, L., 2011. Credit card fraud detection using neural network. International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering (IJSCE), 1(32-38).

Paymentscardsandmobile, 2019. Fraud Report: losses on UK-issued cards totalled £671.4 million in 2018. [Online]
Available at: https://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/uk-fraud-report-2019/

Raj, S. B. E. & Portia, A. A., 2011. Analysis on credit card fraud detection methods. 2011 International Conference on Computer, Communication and Electrical Technology (ICCCET), pp. 152-156.

Tej Paul Bhatla, V. P. &. A. D., 2010. Understandign Credit Card Frauds. Science Direct, pp. 1-15.