New research by payment provider ACI Worldwide shows that approximately a quarter of consumers in the UK do not trust retailers because of card fraud issues. The survey actually showed that UK shoppers are among the most trusting, with only the Netherlands proving more trusting, while the results also showed a fairly scathing opinion of the government’s attempts to crack down on fraud problems. A lack of information regarding card fraud was also evident in the responses to the survey.
All forms of fraud are a major concern, but the one that directly and indirectly affects UK consumers is card fraud. Many shoppers are irritated when they receive anti-fraud calls from banks and card issuers but, in truth, these can help to prevent hundreds or thousands of pounds of fraudulent activity being taken from a person’s account. Consumers are still affected, though, as prices are inevitably pushed up by the financial loss associated with fraud, while some shoppers still fall foul of identity theft and other fraudulent activities.
A survey of 6,000 consumers across the world showed that 29% of shoppers, globally, do not trust retailers to protect their finances. The UK was actually quite trusting, with 38% of respondents from the country saying that the systems used by retailers were adequate to protect their data and their money.
When it came to the debate of whether online or offline retailers were safer, it seems that UK shoppers have gone online because they believe it may now be safer. Asked whether they thought retailers used adequate systems to protect their payment information, 75% said that online retailers did and 68% said that offline retailers used suitably secure payment systems. 62% said that they would their bank to stop all transactions until a fraud alert was resolved.
Fraud and identity checks can be irritating, especially if they prevent a purchase from going through and leave a person stranded at the till. However, the evolving and technologically advanced methods employed by fraudsters means that consumers are warming to these and other tactics used by retailers and financial institutions to help protect their money.