If the wife of FBI boss Robert Mueller has warned him not to use internet banking because of the threat of online fraud, then what hope is there for the average Jo? The results of research published in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics suggests that more of us are no longer entrusting our finances to virtual accounts.

According to Susan Sproule and Norm Archer of McMaster University, Ontario, Canada, identity theft and fraud are an increasing concern to consumers who interact with online businesses routinely.

Phishing for logins is not the only problem. Credit card skimming, insider theft, and counterfeiting of digital information, and ID “trafficking” are also on the increase. All of these types of fraud are costly for the individuals involved both financially and often in terms of the time needed to clear their name when illegal use has been made of their personal details.

The Canadian team has now created a model of how consumer identity theft and fraud occur and in parallel report on a recent survey of Canadian consumers. In assessing fraud concerning credit cards, existing bank accounts, new accounts, and other frauds, they find that one in five people have stopped or reduced the amount of shopping that they do online while almost one in ten are no longer carrying out banking online, or have reduced the amount of online banking that they do because of fraud worries.

Read more . . .

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Related posts:

1. Thwarting Cyber Criminals
2. Social networkers warned of risk
3. Innovation Toronto Weekly Roundup – October 25, 2009
4. What happened to the global economy and what we can do about it Where Are We Again? (Pre-G20 Pittsburgh summit)
5. “Wake Up, Gentlemen”

Tags: bank accounts, canadian consumers, credit card skimming, digital information, fbi director, fbi head, frauds, internet banking, phish, robert mueller, susan sproule, virtual accounts

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 10:51 am and is filed under Consider This, Innovation Needed, Need to Know, Science Digest / Science Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.