What is my potential (card) liability in the case of fraud?
More than 3 million credit and debit cards go missing each year. On average fraudsters spend between £350 – £400 on a debit or credit card even before it is reported missing. Fraudulent activity normally occurs within hours of the loss or theft, before most victims report the loss – and in 2000 this fraudulent use totalled £300 million. So what’s your potential liability? In the UK, provided you have complied with the terms and conditions of your card, and there is fraudulent use after a card went missing, but before you have reported it to the card issuer, the Banking Code of Practice limits your liability to £50 per incident. What does this mean in practice? If you lose two credit cards and one debit card, and each is used in a store and at an ATM, your liability is limited to £50 times 3 cards, times 2 incidents, or £300. Some banks will limit this to £150 (or £50 per card). So on these simple numbers you’d only need one loss every 15 or 30 years to pay for a single policy! And that
