If you had asked me a few weeks ago what the safest form of payment is, I might have had a different answer. But after being schooled in fraudulent activity from Interac over dinner, I now know so much more.
It turns out, with all the chips on our new credit cards, it doesn’t really make them any safer because of the technology being used. A lot of people I speak with get nervous about being able to just tap your credit card on a device now and do nothing else.
And some friends don’t even have credit cards because they have been burned before. In fact, just one week prior to my meeting with Interac, my husband and I had changed our credit cards because of fraud on our family card. It was nothing too large, but even still, there were two random items that we had nothing to do with.
And when we asked our credit card company to find out more, their answer was simply they could not. Credit card companies are full aware of the problem, and seem to be OK with losing the money in these random and untraceable fraudulent activities. And I say they are OK, because there doesn’t seem to be any big changes in their technology to prevent fraud. But not Interac.
Unlike magnetic stripe-based debit cards, Interac chip debit cards use cryptography to communicate with the point-of-sale terminal to carry out security checks and ensure card validity. Since the migration to chip technology in 2009, the Interac network has seen a drop of 92 percent from fraud losses due to skimming.
Over the past six years, the fraud activity on Interac’s debit cards continue to drop and this year alone, fraud activity has dropped a whopping 27%!
“With only $2 million of fraud losses occurring within Canada, we are having tremendous success locking down the Canadian payments space and preventing criminals from committing Interac debit card fraud,” said Mark Sullivan, Head, Fraud Market Management, Interac Association/Acxsys Corporation. “Our world-class policies and technologies set the standard for debit card security and send a clear message to criminals: we will not tolerate fraud on the Interac network.”
You may think $2 million is big money but when you compare the percentage and the amount with other forms of payment, it is piddles. When you compare the fraud numbers, 0.003 percent of total transaction amount was fraudulent with only 0.0005 percent occurring inside Canada.
“As leaders in fraud prevention and detection, Canadians should feel exceptionally confident using Interac products and services,” said Sullivan. “As our data shows, Interac Debit and Interac Flash are among the safest ways to pay using a payment card.”
Worth Noting:
Out of all the payment you can make online, the safest form of payment today is an Interac e-transfer. I was so happy to learn that! It is actually my preferred form of payment online. I work a lot with other women in business, especially for my charity. E-transfers have helped us organize and pay on time and with ease.
*Note: e-Transfer is a very safe way to pay, provided you take the necessary precautions.
- You should only send money using Interac e-Transfer to people you know and trust, the same way you would with cash (an Interac e-Transfer cannot be reversed once a recipient has deposited the funds).
- For uses where you may not know the recipient well, like online auctions or resale sites, it is up to the sender to take the same precautions you would normally take when making cash purchases, as an Interac e-Transfer cannot be reversed once a recipient has deposited the funds.
So the next time you are looking to pay for something, remember these stats:
Disclaimer: I was compensated for this blog post, but I was more than happy to share this important information with you. Especially from a company that is doing good for its customers, and that is a not-for-profit organization (yes, you read right!).