84% of Canadians manifest concern over online fraud

According to the 2012 TD Canada Trust Fraud Prevention Month poll, fewer Canadians overall are worried about becoming a victim of fraud compared to last year (72 percent versus 79 percent in 2011). Nevertheless, many of them are concerned about emerging types of fraud such as online fraud (84 percent), malicious social media apps (77 percent), phishing (72 percent) and fraudulent cell phone apps (61 percent).

Furthermore, the poll has pointed out that Canadians are more concerned about traditional forms of fraud including debit card fraud (87 percent versus 81 percent in 2011) and identity theft (91 percent versus 86 percent in 2011). Compared to last year, more Canadians now rely only on ATMs that belong to their bank (65 percent versus 58 percent); they speak to their bank to reduce their withdrawal limit (30 percent versus 25 percent) and they change their PINs every couple of months (19 percent versus 12 percent).

However, some Canadians are still engaging in risky behaviour that can make them vulnerable: 14 percent admit they have carried their debit card or credit card PIN in their wallet while 11 percent have sent their credit card number through email. Moreover, 10 percent of Canadians have told someone their PIN.

When it comes to taking actions to fight cyber fraud, most of Canadians make sure that their computers security software and virus/malware protection is up-to-date (86 percent) while others subscribe to the highest level of privacy on their social media accounts (73 percent). Other anti-fraud measures taken by Canadians include: using an automatic lock function with a password-protection feature whenever their mobile phone, tablet, computer starts-up or times-out (54 percent), never texting or emailing banking information (46 percent), never downloading social media apps from unknown sources (45 percent), never sharing email or social media site passwords (45 percent).

Results were collected through Environics national telephone omnibus between 24-29 January 2012. A total of 1,000 interviews were completed.

The Toronto-Dominion Bank and its subsidiaries are collectively known as TD Bank Group (TD). TD serves approximately 20.5 million customers in 4 key businesses operating in a number of locations in financial centres around the globe such as Canadian Personal and Commercial Banking, including TD Canada Trust and TD Auto Finance Canada.