One of my clients was looking forward to a vacation at Disney World earlier this year. They had budgeted, saved, and packed their bags for the airport. They didn’t know that, earlier that week, someone stole their debit card information via a local coffee retailer and subsequently emptied their accounts. Not only was their account empty, but they had overcharges, as well: No money for the trip and no way to get it back in time.
Debit card fraud is on the rise. Skimming alone grew 96% in 2023, according to VP Product Management Debbie Cobb of FICO FICO -1.8%, with more than 315,000 impacted cards identified. “While skimming is one of the vectors that fraudsters use to separate victims from their hard-earned money, criminals will also continue phishing, smishing (texting-based phishing), and other tactics to obtain any data they can use to commit fraud across all channels.”
/ Brian Boswell, CFP® is a financial planner and college savings expert. Contributor
May 21, 2024