National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

4.7.5 Consequences for Dutch society
It is clear that skimming incidents have a detrimental effect. Whilst the majority
of Dutch consumers and businesses have not yet experienced skimming, this
type of fraud is still considered to be a problem. Following their experience, the
victims of skimming have less confidence in electronic transactions than before.
However, as this is a comparatively rare offence, the detrimental effect on Dutch
society will be very limited. Despite the skimming incidents, withdrawing cash
or paying for an article using a bank card remains a cheap, efficient and safe
method. In 2005, 2006 and 2007 the financial loss caused by skimming was
1.8 million, 4.9 million and 12.1 million euros respectively. To put these amounts
into perspective: a total of 1.79 billion pin transactions were carried out in 2005,
representing a total amount of €111.8 billion. This means that the fraud amount
per transaction is € 0.0021.
The amount withdrawn from an account by means of skimming is fully
reimbursed by the banks, which means that the quantifiable damage suffered
by private individuals is zero. As a result, the media attention paid to skimming
mainly affects businesses in the form of loss of reputation. A retailer (or chain
of retailers) where skimming has occurred runs the risk of being avoided by
potential customers, especially in the period immediately following the
announcement in the media, resulting in loss of income.
4.7.6 Crime-related factors and expectations
Skimming is mainly carried out by Romanian criminal organisations. As a result,
the situation in Romania may have effect on the activities of these organisations
in Western Europe. Economic circumstances in particular will play a role. Even
though Romania has now acceded to the EU, the level of prosperity in Romania
does not appear likely to rise to a Western European level in the short term.
As far as skimming is concerned, technological developments will determine the
future. The introduction of the EMV chip card in particular could limit the scale
of the phenomenon. EMV is a new international standard for payments and
cash withdrawal using credit cards and bank cards. The rate at which old chip
and pin terminals are replaced by modern equipment also has a profound effect.
At the beginning of 2008 some 10% of all chip and pin terminals were still
models that could be skimmed relatively easily. Skimmers select the businesses
with these models as targets. Technological preventive measures are used to try
to reduce the number of skimming incidents. Combined with the fact that the
banks reimburse the loss, the seriousness of the consequences is limited. This
would change for businesses if the banks were to adopt a different policy,
whereby businesses were made responsible for the loss. There are no specific
174 National Threat Assessment 2008 – Organised crime