THOUSANDS of counterfeit credit cards are being manufactured by fraudsters in Jakarta and Hong Kong and then used in the UK, according to American Express credit-card fraud specialist Peter Bignold.
He said factories in the Far East were making hundreds and thousands of them at the time but the quality was not very good.
“The three or four-digit code on the card is embossed but it shouldn’t be.”
He warned agents to look out for blurred printing on the background of the card, badly embossed numbers on the face of the card, excess embossing and a badly copied signature panel.
Any card that fails to swipe through a PDQ machine should be imprinted instead.
Bignold added that fraudsters stayed away from retailers which had a reputation as being vigilant about checking cards.