Every year millions of Americans become victims of fraud due to merchant data breaches.
In a late 2016 survey conducted by Georgia Credit Union Affiliates, 44 percent of respondents said they’d been victimized by fraud and/or identity theft. That was before the recent Equifax breach, which affected 145.5 million people. Although most consumers have probably only heard about a few breaches, more than 1,100 data security breaches have occurred so far this year. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, this has exposed more than 171 million data records.
The Georgia Department of Law Consumer Protection Unit notes than in 2015 Georgia had the seventh greatest number of identity theft-related complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission. Atlanta/Sandy Springs/Roswell ranked 24th and Gainesville ranked 40th among the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas with the most identity theft-related consumer complaints.
Many financial institutions are working hard to implement debit and credit card chip technology, but this does not prevent online merchant transaction fraud. As cybersecurity threats continue to evolve in both sophistication and scale, the need to safeguard your data has never been more critical.
When a breach occurs, a financial institution blocks and reissues cards as needed. When fraud occurs, they work with consumers to remove the fraudulent charges. When a merchant breach happens, the cost of that security lapse is passed on to the financial institutions. These expenses can be a hardship for not-for-profit credit unions, since they operate within a different structure than for-profit service providers, delivering benefits like lower interest rates and fewer fees to their members rather than profits to shareholders. With more and more merchant data breaches occurring each year, consumer identity fraud will only continue to increase, placing your private information into the hands of criminals.Every year millions of Americans become victims of fraud due to merchant data breaches.
In a late 2016 survey conducted by Georgia Credit Union Affiliates, 44 percent of respondents said they’d been victimized by fraud and/or identity theft. That was before the recent Equifax breach, which affected 145.5 million people. Although most consumers have probably only heard about a few breaches, more than 1,100 data security breaches have occurred so far this year. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, this has exposed more than 171 million data records.
The Georgia Department of Law Consumer Protection Unit notes than in 2015 Georgia had the seventh greatest number of identity theft-related complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission. Atlanta/Sandy Springs/Roswell ranked 24th and Gainesville ranked 40th among the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas with the most identity theft-related consumer complaints.
Many financial institutions are working hard to implement debit and credit card chip technology, but this does not prevent online merchant transaction fraud. As cybersecurity threats continue to evolve in both sophistication and scale, the need to safeguard your data has never been more critical.
When a breach occurs, a financial institution blocks and reissues cards as needed. When fraud occurs, they work with consumers to remove the fraudulent charges. When a merchant breach happens, the cost of that security lapse is passed on to the financial institutions. These expenses can be a hardship for not-for-profit credit unions, since they operate within a different structure than for-profit service providers, delivering benefits like lower interest rates and fewer fees to their members rather than profits to shareholders. With more and more merchant data breaches occurring each year, consumer identity fraud will only continue to increase, placing your private information into the hands of criminals.
For more information, read November’s edition of Consider This.
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