Such a decrease may be attributed to the measures the financial institutions have taken to authenticate users and determine credit risk. Also, the study has highlighted a decline in the number of reported data breaches: 404 in 2010 with 26 million records exposed, versus 604 registered in 2009 with 221 million records exposed.
According to the report findings, the mean fraud amount per victim has dropped from USD 4,991 in 2009 to USD 4,607 in 2010.
The consumer fraud costs have climbed by 63 percent from USD 387 in 2009 to USD 631 per incident in 2010. The main cause is represented by the types of fraud committed in 2010, including new account and debit card fraud, the same source points out. Consumer fraud costs include costs incurred by the victim towards payoff of any fraudulent debt as well as fees to solve fraudulent claims.
According to Javelin’s study, new account fraud has generated the greatest fraud amount of USD 17 billion. Existing card fraud amounts have dropped by 38 percent to USD 14 billion in 2010 in comparison with USD 23 billion in 2009. The 2011 Identity Fraud Survey Report was co-sponsored by the US financial services technology company Fiserv, consumer and corporate identity risk management services provider Intersections and the US financial services provider Wells Fargo.
In the last seven years, the state of retail sales has had a direct impact on identity fraud. The more retail sales grow the more fraud incidents decrease.
Wells Fargo has indicated a few steps to follow in order to prevent online and mobile fraud, such as changing passwords regularly, using official applications, signing up for alerts, reviewing credit report and storing a copy of the personal and financial information.
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