Close to one in 10 Australians fell victim to card fraud in the 2021/22 financial year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports.
The latest ABS fraud data show that 8.1 per cent (1.7 million people) experienced card fraud in 2021/22 – up from 6.9 per cent in the previous year.
Card fraud has the highest victimisation rate of any type of fraud measured by the ABS. The rate for scams is 2.7 per cent and for identity theft 0.8 per cent.
For the purposes of its research, the ABS defines card fraud as fraud involving use of credit or debit card details to make purchases or withdraw cash without the account holder’s permission.
More than half (59 per cent) of those who experienced card fraud did not know how their details were obtained. Among those that did, the most common way personal details were obtained was over the internet (21 per cent).
Despite advice to consumers not to hand their card to anyone or allow it to be out of their sight, a surprisingly large proportion (5.1 per cent) had their card details copied in person.
The increase in the card fraud victimisation rate echoes the findings of the industry body, the Australian Payment Network, which reported last year that the value of fraudulent cheque and card payments rose 1.7 per cent to A$502 million in 2021/22.
However, AusPayNet said the proportion of fraud to the value of transactions was down. The fraud rate was 54.7 cents per $1000 spent in 2021/22, down from 57.8 cents in the previous year.