Transfer fraud

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Transfer fraud is a form of transfer fraud which, in turn, forms part of so-called non-cash payments. Account opening fraud at credit institutions is usually the starting point of the transfer fraud, which is usually committed by means of signature forgery.

Transfer fraud is a form of bank fraud or Payment fraud.

Cases of transfer fraud

Within the framework of the Police Criminal Statistics of the Federal Criminal Police Office, the sum of known cases of transfer fraud together with the account opening fraud in the case of property and counterfeit offences is kept under the key number “5183”.

For 2011, 20,608 cases of account and transfer fraud were reported.

The majority of offences in this fraud division are carried out with transfers. In 2011, this resulted in 16,522 cases, and in 2010, 15,877 cases. The reconnaissance rate has fallen significantly in recent years: while it was still at a level of 69.2 percent in 2009, it fell to 63.4 percent in 2010 and is now 58.6 percent.

Most recently, in May 2007, the BKA published a sum for total damage in the area of account and transfer fraud: it was estimated at 35,510,921 euros in 2006. Of the 13,297 known cases of the year, 2589 cases of individual damage in the range between 500 and 2500 euros counted.

Conspicuous are regional accumulations of fraud waves.

The Hessian Police Crime Statistics for 2007 published on 10 March 2008 recorded 1,554 cases of account opening and transfer fraud (+ 27.6 percent compared to 2006).
The Criminal Police Düsseldorf registered according to a report of the Neue Ruhr Zeitung of the 2nd. March 2007 in 2006 484 cases of account opening and transfer fraud (up 130 percent to 2005).
In August 2006, reports of fraud cases in the Greater Stuttgart area increased.
In Berlin, a total of 3007 cases were noted in the section “Account opening and transfer fraud” in 2006. Compared to 2005, there was a significant increase of 899 cases, an increase of 42.6 percent within one year. During the same period in Berlin, the reconnaissance rate of these offences had risen from 68.3 to 78.0 percent.
In 2003, the district government of Düsseldorf recorded an increase in cases by more than 500 percent compared to the previous year. 2,712 of the 11,508 cases registered throughout Germany at that time were in the Düsseldorf area.

Forms of transfer fraud

The account details of the injured parties are determined in various ways. In Austria and Germany, since 2005, cases have made headlines, according to which transfer media were stolen from the collective mailboxes of the bank branches. “It also happens that the boxes are broken open or knocked out of the walls,” said police chief commissioner Jens-Oliver Heuer from the Landeskriminalamt Berlin. The police in Oberhausen reveal