Since chip & pin technology was introduced on Valentine’s Day 2006 fraudulent card transactions have leapt 43%. This surge comes as banks increasingly take a tough line with victims by refusing to make refunds.

To compound the problem the Home Office has decide that the police will no longer record and investigate card fraud. If you now phone the police about card fraud they’ll simply tell you to contact your bank – they have no remit to investigate.

Back in 2006, chip & pin was introduced with a big fanfare as the solution to fraud. The huge cost of the system was the effectively passed on to the banking public in charges. But it seems that every time the banking industry introduce something new the fraudster follow close behind snapping at their heels.

The reality is that chip & pin has precipitated a massive rise in the cloning of cards. Before the change, pin numbers were only used at bank cash machines but now even just in the UK, they are used at 900,000 tills in stores, supermarkets and restaurants. This has created untold opportunity for fraudsters to steal pins and the magnetic strip information which is essential to make copies.

The reality is that the chip & pin system is broken.