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How to beat the Christmas fraudsters

Whether shopping on the high street or online in the run up to Christmas, it is essential that you take steps to protect yourself from the dangers of card fraud. In all that frantic festive shopping it is easy to fall into bad habits that play into the hands of sophisticated fraudsters.

The good news for consumers is that the success of chip and PIN has seen card fraud in shops and supermarkets drop significantly. Fraud losses are down by 43% from £73.2 million to £42.1m in the face-to-face retail environment but shoppers are being reminded to be vigilant especially with Internet, phone and mail order transactions, where card-not-present fraud has increased but at a much slower rate than seen previously. In the busy Christmas period it is easy to lose sight of your card or drop your guard when entering your PIN during a purchase, and a momentary lapse is all that is needed to open the door for professional criminals.

When entering your PIN at a cashmachine or into a PIN pad in a shop you should always shield the number from prying eyes with your spare hand. Protecting your personal information is paramount and that also means shredding or destroying any receipts or documents that contain private financial details and not writing down passwords, login details or PIN numbers.

Online shopping is set to smash last year's record with an estimated £7 billion being spent on getting the latest gadgets, toys and fashion accessories. Shopping online couldn't be safer as long as you follow some simple security steps such as ensuring that your computer has up-to-date anti-virus software and a firewall installed. You should also register your credit and debit cards with Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode, which enables cardholders to better authenticate themselves with a password when shopping online - making online transactions even safer.

But there are other precautions that you may not be familiar with. Millions of Britons are still not aware of some basic security pitfalls. A quarter of people surveyed by APACS have disclosed their PIN to someone else, 27% use the same PIN for all their cards and more than half of online shoppers never check that a website address changes from http to https (indicating the site is secure) before making a purchase.

When accessing internet banking or shopping sites you should always type the address into your web browser rather than going to a website from a link in an email and then entering your personal details. To make sure that a shopping website is secure check that the security icon (locked padlock or unbroken key symbol) is showing in the bottom of your browser window.

Click here for APACS top Ten Tips to foil the fraudsters; www.cardwatch.org.uk & www.banksafeonline.org.uk

To learn more and have your specific questions answered join Mark Bowerman and Richard Martin from APACS join live online at www.webchats.tv on Wednesday 15th November at 1300

Transcript

H: Murray Norton, Host
M: Mark Berman, APACS
R: Richard Martin, APACS

H: Hello and welcome to the Consumer show bought to you in association with APACS, my name is Murray Norton. Now you know what Christmas is going to be like, it’s going to be one of those busy, fast, frenetic times when you’re out there doing the shopping in the high street and what you’re going to do is get into some bad habits when you’re using your credit card which is going to fall right into the hands of those sophisticated fraudsters. So we’re going to give you some pointers in the right direction on that, in the next couple of minutes. Also we’re going to be looking at buying online, buying by mail order, yes it’s buying when the card is not present, and that’s where the high risk is. The good news is in face-to-face transactions it’s down by some 43% thanks to Chip ‘n’ Pin on your plastic. The men who can tell us a little bit more about it have joined us on the sofa here and they’re from APACS as well, Mark Berman thank you very much for coming in and also Richard Martin as well. Before we start, APACS, we’ve said it’s bought in association with APACS, what is APACS?

M: APACS is the UK trade association for payments, in essence we’re the plumbing of how money gets transmitted from a to b whether that’s cash, cheques, electronic payments or in this case credit and debit cards

H: Now we’ve been hearing in the news for an awful long time about credit cards, about debit cards and about the fraud that’s been involved with this, and we’re going to go through that bit by bit, but the good news starts off, as I just said with Chip ‘n’ Pin saved an awful lot in fraud hasn’t it?

M: Absolutely, the most recent figures we have show that card fraud losses in the first half of this year were down to £209 million

H: Still sounds like a lot

M: It is a lot really and you know that’s why you know it’s something that we all still have to be aware of, Chip ‘n’ Pin hasn’t meant that card fraud has gone away it’s still out there, but what it has done is seriously reduce the levels of it, but we can all still play our part to help reduce it further

H: Alright so good news, Chip ‘n’ Pin is bringing it down. Where is the problem in general terms, Richard are we talking about the phishing side of it here and I know we’re going to come onto it later, but it’s where the card isn’t present –

R: That’s right it really is where the card isn’t present where the protection of Chip ‘n’ Pin doesn’t really apply because there’s no way as yet to transfer the electronic information from a Chip ‘n’ Pin transaction over the internet or over the phone or over mail order either, so there you’re stuck with just using the credit card number and the details that go with that, and that is information that can be stolen and possibly re-used by a fraudster

H: Ok we’ll come onto a lot more of that in just a few moments. Before we do though let me just tell you that you can send us your questions now, it’s quite simple, bottom of the screen there, there is a little space for you to put your questions in. Send them off to us and as soon as you do we’ll get the boys here to answer any questions you might have about debit cards, credit cards and about avoiding the freud – fraud (freud?) or even the fraud – we’ve got some top 10 tips and we’ll be going through those for you in just a few moments. Questions already coming in, one from John, thank you John for your question, he wants to know “some cards are safer, are some cards safer or more at risk than other cards?”

M: Not really no because the fraudsters, although they’re organised criminal gangs they do sort of work in an opportunistic fashion in that they don’t really know what sort of card they’re going to be targeting. Say for instance they’re perpetrating cash machine fraud, they don’t know who the next 10 people are who are going to use that machine or what cards they may have, so no there’s not really a particular card that’s any safer than another.

H: Credit cards, debit cards, solo cards – they’ve all got the same technology have they?

M: That’s right, the fraudsters are looking to compromise all of them. What you have to remember is that whether you have a credit card or a debit card, if you are an innocent victim of fraud in the UK you will be fully refunded by your bank

H: That’s always good news isn’t it?

M: It’s very good news, I mean it’s a protection that a lot of other countries don’t have, if you lose your money you know in a country abroad you won’t get it back from your bank, but in this country if you’re the innocent victim you do, so that’s more good news for us

H: Does that make us a little bit less careful than we would otherwise be?

M: Well I suppose it could but I think there is the hassle factor involved when you are a victim of card fraud, nobody likes to – you know that awful moment when you realise that you’ve had hundreds or thousands of pounds taken from your account, you still have to go through the process of getting your money back, that could take a week, it could take 6 weeks, you know there’s no guarantee how long that will take, each bank will look at each case on an individual basis, so I think it’s something that is definitely to be avoided

R: I remember it was Valentines day last year, Chip ‘n’ Pin first came in, I remember it quite clearly, it was –

M: It was this year!

R: Was it this year? Gosh I thought it was last year –

M: Time flies

R: Yes time does fly when you’re having fun! There was the little Chip ‘n’ Pin and we all had to get used to it, it was a lead-up process, people have got that pretty well sorted now, everyone knows their Chip ‘n’ Pin, we’ve gone past that date by a long period

M: Absolutely yes the overwhelming majority of transactions are now verified with a pin. There were issues that people wouldn’t be able to remember their number but I think you know research and experience has shown that everybody is comfortable with the system, retailers like it, consumers like it

R: And we’ve got the portable one haven’t we?

M: Yes

R: That we can move around – have you got one down here that we can have a look at?

M: Yes

R: We’ve got this one down here that I’ll set up for you

M: You’re sort of going to come across these in a restaurant environment where previously your card may have been taken away from the table, out of your sight and that’s something that we recommend that you should keep your eye on your card and your card details at all times, so this is another benefit of Chip ‘n’ Pin if you’re in a restaurant they can bring a portable Chip ‘n’ Pin terminal to your table, your card doesn’t have to leave your sight

H: Now when people are putting their Chip ‘n’ Pin in, just because they know the number isn’t it very easy for someone else to see the number as well?

M: Well of course there’s the potential for someone else to look at the keypad and to see what your number is –

H: Sure

M: So what we recommend, it’s a very simple tip but very effective in helping prevent you become a victim, is just put your spare hand over the keypad as you punch your number in

H: Yes sure, I can’t see what it is from there –

M: Exactly, if there’s somebody looking over your shoulder then they’re not going to see what that number is

H: Ok the important thing there, and we’ve been told this time and time again, don’t let the card out of your sight if you can help it – there are a lot of reasons for this I guess and one is the cloning of cards there Richard as well?

R: Yes that was certainly something that happened a lot more back in the days where there were no chips on the cards. These days the chip itself is something which is incredibly difficult to copy and we never come across a case where that has actually occurred, so it’s hopefully a problem which is going to diminish as time goes on, but it’s still something which is possibly a problem

H: So here really is no need for your card to be out of your sight at any time, because you do see this, I don’t know this very flamboyant thing where you throw your credit card onto the bill and the tray that it comes on, and it gets whisked off again and it’s out of sight for, I don’t know, 4, 5 minutes at a time – that shouldn’t happen should it?

M: It shouldn’t, no and you have to remember that it’s not just your card that is important it’s your card details, a fraudster may not steal your card, may just write down your card number that special 3 digit number on the back of your card, and that’s all sort of information that they could potentially use to make a card not present transaction where they don’t actually need your card, they just need your card details

H: One of the things that’s come up, and actually good question from Dennis, thank you Dennis, he says that he knows that Chip ‘n’ Pin has made things an awful lot safer in terms of transactions, but it stops shop clerks no longer inspecting cards, and thieves are able to run up charge without inspection. Shouldn’t something be implemented there, shouldn’t shop staff be trained to check the cards as well?

M: Well some shops will still go through the process of taking your card and putting it into the Chip ‘n’ Pin terminal themselves, and they will have a look at it because obviously there are instances where somebody called, somebody with a card that says “Mrs” and the fraudster could be a man is using a card that says “Mrs” on it and obviously that’s a good indication that it’s a fraudulent transaction. But I think the idea behind Chip ‘n’ Pin is that it takes the decision as to whether there’s a fraudster using the card out of the decision of the person behind the till and we are relying on technology, and really and truly the only person that should be using that card is the genuine card holder because they should be the only person that knows that pin, it’s vital that you keep your pin a secret at all times.

H: Do you feel it’s a great deal of good news that we’re actually winning something in fraud because it was a long haul and a long battle to get Chip ‘n’ Pin in, but at least some success and some good news is coming out of it

M: Yes absolutely, when we made the decision to roll out Chip ‘n’ Pin way back in 2002, we did some research and that showed that if we didn’t introduce Chip ‘n’ Pin then losses would be in the region of £800 million by last year. Obviously we’ve introduced it, losses last year were £440 million so you could say that Chip ‘n’ Pin has effectively halved card fraud losses

H: Right. Questions coming in thick and fast as we speak, one from Paul, Paul Iger, thank you Paul for your question, “why can’t credit cards be more like ID cards or smart card for which they contain more details about each individual? If the card had all these details on it, wouldn’t it make it nearly impossible to fraud anyone?”

M: Well potentially yes, I mean the chip, the microchip along the front of the card has a huge capacity for information. At the moment we’re using a pin, a secret 4 digit pin to identify ourselves, but there’s no reason in the future when these things become more robust and more economically affordable that you couldn’t use a biometric such as an iris recognition, or a finger print, a thumb print to identify yourself, so certainly yes in the future when the technology is more robust and it’s more economically efficient to do so I think we’ll find those things on the card rather than a pin

H: Wow that’s an even better step forward Richard

R: Yes quite possibly, although as Mark rightly points out the state of the technology for biometric identification is still not quite there yet as far as banks are concerned, because banks want to make sure that every transaction goes through, I mean if you think about it if you’re in a shop and one out of – even one out of every 100 of your transactions is turned down because the card can’t recognise your thumbprint then that’s going to be a very annoying factor for you as a customer, so banks want to make sure that the technology is robust, it’s there and it’s economically – it makes economic sense to put it in as well, so we’re not quite there yet but hopefully one day

H: We’re getting there

R: We’ve said that the sophisticated fraudster, they are pretty clever people these people aren’t they, we’re not – you know we’re not just looking at someone whose looking over your shoulder trying to get your card number but they’re building kit as well, I know you’ve bought some amazing kit down here – I’m just going to reach down and see these, the first bit we saw, now this is going back a little while isn’t it, these are stick-on fronts that were put on automatic cash machines?

M: Yes sort of 2 / 3 years ago the criminals would attach these devices to a cash machine, to the card entry slot where you put your card in and what would happen is as your card passed through this device into the machine, the gadgetry on the back of it would actually record your magnetic strip details and after that had been on a machine for half an hour, an hour the criminals would come back, take it off and then they’d download the information onto a laptop and then upload the information onto a blank card that they could then use in conjunction with the pin which they would have captured via this device, which is a device concealing a miniature camera that would be focused on the keypad, there’s – it’s sort of battery-powered –

H: Yes

M: And then they’d match up the card information with the pin and potentially they could empty your account via a cash machine transaction

H: This is no sort of made at home piece of polystyrene is it? This is pretty sophisticated gear

M: That’s right, I mean the criminals are using technology to their benefit, as the banks use technology to prevent fraud the criminals are looking to use the same sort of technology to commit it

H: And these were actually taken off machines?

M: Yes they were part of a police investigation, the police recovered those from a counterfeit card factory that the criminals were using to create fake cards

H: Now I know the warning went out when these were stuck on the front of cash machines, these were stuck on and I know you guys were saying look out for these, if you see anything that looks like it’s stuck on the front looks like a false front – and you might spot that

M: Yes

H: What chance have you got with this? Because obviously this has been spotted, but this is, this again is a false front that’s been put on by the fraudsters?

M: That’s right yes, I mean they’ve taken it a step further as you say, the small devices that would have attached here, we got the message out to card holders and they were spotting them, you know but if you have a fiddle around here and you think well there’s nothing stuck to this, it’s safe to use, but of course the whole thing is a fake front, they even use banking industry logos and stickers to convince you that it’s genuine and it works in the same way, as your card passes through this slot, there’s gadgetry and gizmos in there that will record the magnetic stripe details, and they probably would employ –

H: A camera above it again?

M: The camera above it again focused to the keypad, enabling them to make fake magnetic strip cards, so the key again really is as we mentioned, when you’re inputting your pin in a shop – when you’re inputting your pin at a cash machine, use your spare hand to shield the keypad and that way if there is a camera fixed above looking down onto the keypad it won’t be able to see what the number is. Unless they for instance, 10 people have used this compromise machine and they get the data and the pins of 5 cards because somebody’s been carefree in how they enter their pin, but there’s 5 people who cover the keypad as they enter their pin, they’re going to use the data of the 5 people whose pin they know, not the other 5, so to help prevent yourself being a victim, cover the keypad with your spare hand

H: Of course it can be some time before you actually find out that you’ve been a victim

M: That’s right, we recommend that you check your bank statements card statements regularly and thoroughly any unusual transactions on there, suspicious transactions, notify your bank immediately and as I mentioned earlier if you’re the innocent victim of card fraud you will be fully refunded by your bank

H: Glad you mentioned that actually because that was a questions that’s just come in from Judith from Torquay, I know we mentioned it earlier on – Judith said a friend of hers was a victim, £280 was taken from her account and she wants to know if you’re definitely covered for it?

M: Yes. It’s – what the banking code says is as long as you haven’t acted negligently or fraudulently then you will be fully refunded. I mean I would hope that in this instance the victim hasn’t written her pin down and kept it with her card because the banks view that as acting negligently and you might struggle to get your money back in that instance

H: We should point out that actually Judith’s friend from down in Torquay there was duped using one of these fake fronts so it was a false front to a cash machine

M: Sure, should be a cut and dry case then, she should get her money back

H: Ok, we’ve got another question coming in from Robert as well, Robert wants to know “what are banks doing to protect card users at the hole-in-the-wall sites?” so you know that’s an example that we’ve just seen there of the false fronts, but what are banks actually doing about that? Obviously you’ve got all sorts of methods that you don’t want to go into because you’re telling the fraudsters as well

M: Sure I mean there are a lot of anti-skimming initiatives, devices that are built into the machines themselves, the banking industry actually funds its own police unit that targets the organised crime, the organised gangs behind these crimes and all this sort of matched up with the CCTV that some machines have fitted to them, it’s about preventing, it’s about deterring and it is an ongoing battle you know we make no secret of that, but the criminals are always looking to stay one step ahead or looking for the next sort of weak link in the process so to speak. It’s an ongoing battle, everyone can play their part – banks, cash machines owners and of course card holders, simply by shielding the keypad, that really is a top tip that is going to help prevent you being a victim

H: Ok we’re halfway through by the way, time is running away from us so if you’ve got any questions now is the time to push that question through to us, little box at the bottom, send it off to us we’ll get it through in the next 15 minutes or so. I want to move on to online and online fraud because this is an area which, whilst Chip ‘n’ Pin is doing its best, its level best, this is an area where fraud is happening and this is online. Is this where the card is not present so people are ordering things, or fraudsters are ordering things just because they know your card details?

R: Well yes, I mean that is essentially what is happening, as Mark has pointed out it is still possible even in these days of Chip ‘n’ Pin for fraudsters to be able to get hold of enough information from the card in order to make a payment either online or over the phone or by mail order, so that is essentially what they are doing, but unfortunately because shopping on the internet has exploded in popularity over the last few years, so it’s something that a lot more of us are doing, and we’re spending a lot more money on it and there are a lot more shops online so it means that as well as it’s a good thing for us as consumers it’s also a good thing as it were for the fraudsters because there are more ways that they can possibly spend their ill-gotten gains

H: So how do you know if you’re shopping with someone that you’re safe to shop with them?

R: Well the usual advice is to try and shop with reputable merchants, people who you know about or you’ve heard about, but often because the internet is a new environment there are lots of companies coming on board that nobody’s ever heard of before, now that suddenly pop up with a new website, and it’s probably worthwhile doing a bit of additional research just to make sure that they are a legitimate company in the first place, someone that you would want to do business with. Does the website look right, are they offering the right guarantees, are they giving you a feeling of confidence that they’ve actually got the things which they’re trying to sell to you. But more importantly when you go to buy something online is to make sure that the site itself is secure, and you can do this by, well when you first go to a website it will usually not be in an encrypted format, it will have http on the web address bar, that means it’s a purely open site, but when you go through to make a payment, in other words if you want to then hand over your card details, then you should always make sure it changes into a secure mode where the web address changes to an https and usually what happens, particularly with internet explorer is you’ll see a small padlock icon appear at the bottom, or I think the new version of internet explorer it actually appears at the top, near the address bar, and then you can click on that, just to make sure that the certificate which appears behind the padlock actually matches the name of the website which you’re on. And the appearance of those two things, the https symbol and the padlock icon means that web session is now encrypted and secure, and any information you put onto that web page should then be passed through in a secure format to the server at the other end

H: Without people picking it up –

R: Exactly right

H: And getting the information. Ok so that’s the most secure way of knowing that we’re doing the right thing then. I suppose the difficulty is that someone else has got all my card details, they’ve got the little 3-digit security code at the back, they’ve got my card number, they’ve got my expiry date and they can just go on and order until I suddenly decide there’s something missing from my account, that’s probably the worst scenario isn’t it?

R: Yes unfortunately it is, the banking industry is looking at a number of ways to improve the experience, one of those is introduction of 3 secure, or as it’s more commonly known “Verified by Visa or Mastercard” secure code, this is where in addition to handing over your card details you’re also setting a password which only you know, and then when you go to hand over your card details you will then input your password as well, so if a fraudster – even if a fraudster has managed to skim your card and clone it, and got the card details and the 3 digit number on the back, they will not know the password unless they’ve actually asked you for it and got it out of you. Now that’s not how fraudsters work at the moment, they don’t tend to go round harassing people who they’ve stolen their cards from, “what’s your online password going to be?”

H: Sure

R: So –

H: It’s just another hurdle that’s going to slow it down

R: Exactly, it is and there are other things in the pipeline which we’ll probably be able to make some announcements about over the coming months to make online shopping even more secure, that’s something for the future

H: Ok, Aaron had a question about that, he just basically said with more people shopping on line which is basically what we’ve been saying, surely this is going to lead to a rise in online fraud, so what precautions are sites taking themselves? Presumably the sites that you’re going on, I mean they don’t want fraud either because they’re going to lose business aren’t they?

R: Well no exactly right, reputable online merchants recognize that it’s an important business channel for them, a lot of their customers will come online so they want to make sure they’re giving their customers a secure experience and one of the things, the ways in which the banking industry has been helping merchants is to provide some certain minimum standards and guidelines for protect – how to protect customers information which the merchant actually stores online, so if you go onto, say, amazon.com or any a lot of other online merchants you’re often asked to create a user account including your name, your address and your card details just so that your future shopping experiences are that much more convenient. Unfortunately if a fraudster is able to get hold of that information that would be very convenient for them

H: It’s a drop-down menu isn’t it?

R: Exactly so what we’ve tried to do is to help the online merchant community to try and make those customer databases much more secure in how they store information and how they protect that information, so that should hopefully help

H: Kitty has a question “can you explain a little bit more about the web address? “ I mean you just mentioned it very quickly there –

R: Sure

H: Http and https – I haven’t noticed that before –

R: It is, unfortunately it comes back to the origins of the internet as being a very sort of techy-focused –

H: It’s a bit of a nerdy thing isn’t it – http?

R: Exactly it is something that hasn’t really developed over the last few years and unfortunately that’s just the way it is

H: Sure

R: A web address in the address bar on the internet in any web browser will always start with http, that’s an indication of the protocol that’s being used in this case to generate a web page. The addition of an s on the end of it means secure, that’s what the last s stands for, and –

H: How many years have I been using this and never even knew this?

R: Exactly that indicates that it’s an encrypted site, but the more visual way of telling that is the appearance of the padlock icon

H: Sure

R: The padlock icon only appears when a website is encrypted, so that’s the thing you really should look out for

H: Ok, one thing that I wanted to talk about before we go is phishing, and it’s not spelt with an f is it it’s spelt with a ph?

R: No it’s spelt with a ph, phishing is a form of spam, we’ve all received spam for a number of horrible things –

H: Yes

R: And phishing is one more iteration of that. It’s literally emails which are sent out purely at random to millions of addresses at a time, and in this case they’re pretending to be from your bank, or from any bank really so often if you receive one it’s not from your bank at all because –

H: We’ve got some on the screen at the moment

R: Right. As you can see

H: We’ve got some on the screen at the moment so people can see these. They look really genuine don’t they?

R: They have been putting a lot of effort into them but there are some ways in which you can tell them apart from a real email from your bank. One of them is it’s not going to be addressed to you personally, as an individual, it will say “dear customer” or some other generic term which indicates that they don’t really know who I am. The second thing is they’ll be putting forward some message to the effect that “hi I’m your bank but I’ve lost all your security information, please put it in again.” Now your bank would never do this, it would never ask you to put that information –

H: Do banks email you at all in this way? I don’t think that they really do

M: They’d never email you and ask you for that information in that way, no

H: No

R: No I mean banks do email their customers from time to time of course but they’ll usually put in some information to say that they at least know who you are or where you live, and details about your account, and they will never ask you to input your full security information, you know click on this link and then go to some unknown website. And when you click on a phishing email link it will take you to a website which again can look exactly like your banks’ real website. Unfortunately the comparison can stop there because it’s actually asking you for a lot more information than your bank would normally ask for, so it’s always worthwhile checking back with your bank sort of – check what sort of information is my bank actually going to ask me for? And then if you go to a site, however it happens, if you find yourself a website which looks like your bank and hold on, it’s actually asking me for a lot of information here which I’m not used to, then start to get suspicious.

H: Ok so that’s phishing discussed. I know you’ve helped, lads just bringing out this top ten list – it’s a way of sort of defeating the fraudsters if we can, at source –

M: That’s right

H: Just going through some of these, there’s one which we haven’t really mentioned and that’s shredding your personal information. I mean that goes for anything, but identity theft, it’s a huge big thing, your credit and debit cards are one of the things they’ll be after so the important thing is shredding or tearing or burning everything as quickly as possible?

M: Yes it’s not just your cards, it’s your card details. It could be bank statements, card statements – anything that has your personal information on it. Even your utility bills with your name and address on, when you’re throwing that away make sure you – preferable shred it, definitely rip it up into small pieces if you haven’t got a shredder, but if you’ve got a shredder, shred it

H: Let’s just go through these – don’t let your cards out of your sight – obvious. Destroy which we’ve just said which is the shredding there. Don’t keep your passwords and your logins and your pins written down – that’s a tough one but I guess it’s something people have got to get used to

M: Yes I mean I appreciate we do have a lot of pins and passwords these days but you must get in the practice of keeping them in your head and not written down

H: Ok you demonstrated earlier on putting your spare hand over the keypad even at a cashpoint

M: Yes

H: Even at a cashpoint

M: Yes. Wherever you input your pin, shield the keypad

H: Alright. Don’t divulge your card details on a telephone transaction unless you know the company

M: Yes. If somebody’s phoned you up and starts asking you for your financial information you should be very very wary. The rule is only give away your financial information when you’ve made the phone call and you know who you’re talking to

H: Firewalls on computers – obviously important

R: Yes indeed. Anti-virus software unfortunately isn’t really enough in this day and age, you do need a firewall because some malicious software is able to possibly get onto your computer, even if you don’t actually do anything like open an email or open a document which might have a virus in it so firewalls are vital

H: Ok there are two things that are certain –firstly sadly someone is going to have fraud committed on them via their credit or debit cards over the Christmas period –

M: Inevitably yes

H: Unfortunately that’s going to happen. The good news is with the top ten tips that can be reduced, that’s the other certainty

M: Yes

H: Alright. Let’s hope that’s the case. There are some web addresses that people can go to

M: Certainly www.cardwatch.org.uk and –

R: www.banksafeonline.org.uk

H: Alright there’s a couple of websites there that people can check out all these top ten tips again. Thank you both, Richard and Mark for coming in

R: Thank you

M: Thank you

H: And for telling us a little bit more about all of this, if you want more information there are some links on the screen which you can follow and that will take you to exactly where you need to go to get even more information. Thank you for your questions and thank you very much for joining us on the Consumer show, we’ll see you again soon

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