TfL Ref: 2999-1819

Thank you for your emails received by us on 8 and 21 February 2019 asking for information about payment card fraud.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. You asked for the following:

1. Please can you let me know how many incidents involving payment card fraud (including contactless) have been recorded on the railway network owned/operated by, or branded by, TfL.
Please can figures be broken down into the time frames as below, all dates inclusive.

• 01/01/2018 – 31/12/2018
• 01/01/2017 – 31/12/2017
• 01/01/2016 – 31/12/2016
• 01/01/2015 – 31/12/2015
• 01/01/2014 – 31/12/2014

The table below provides the number of incidents of payment card fraud recorded via the following channels: Self-service ticket machines, Ticket Office ticket machines, Online and Contactless. Where we have no data, we have stated this. Please also note that none of these values represent a loss to TfL, they are covered by the card issuer and the individual charges behind the amounts stated below are reimbursed to affected customers (subject to discussions between the customer and their card issuer).

The table shows incidents of Visa, Maestro (debit) and Mastercard payment card fraud that is reported to TfL by Barclaycard, our merchant acquirer. Fraud can consist of a card that has been stolen to other reasons we are given such as lost cards, for example.

We do not receive relevant data of this type from American Express to be able to answer this request, consequently the table does not include payment card fraud for American Express cards.

Please note the data in the table is dynamic, and therefore subject to change as any new incidents of payment card fraud continue to be added.

For the period 01/01/2018 to 30/11/2018 the total number of card transactions made on Self-service ticket machine, Ticket office ticket machines, Online and Contactless payments was 388 million with a total value of £2.9 billion.  Consequently the value of incidents reported in the table below of £430,757 for this period represents 0.015% of the total value of card payments. 

Date Period Self-service ticket machine incidents Ticket office ticket machine incidents Online incidents Contactless incidents Total incidents   
01/01/2014 – 31/12/2014 6,511 incidents (March 2014- December 2014 only. Total value
£ 299,059. Average loss £45.93) 369 incidents (March 2014- Dec 2014 only. Total value £14,187. Average loss £38.45) 348 incidents (October, November and December 2014 only). Total value £18,144. Average loss £52.14 N/A */** 7,600  
01/01/2015 – 31/12/2015 49,070 incidents. Total value £1,534,921. Average loss £31.28 476 incidents. Total value £17,007. Average loss £35.73 2,903 incidents. Total value £229,104. Average loss £78.92 2,034 incidents (December 2015 only. Total value £8,106. Average loss £3.99 54,483  
01/01/2016 – 31/12/2016 3,237 incidents. Total value £154,621. Average loss £47.77 27 incidents. Total value £551. Average loss £20.41 1,921 incidents. Total value £120,815. Average loss £62.89 30,221 incidents. Total value £118,515. Average loss £3.92 35,406  
01/01/2017 – 31/12/2017 3,027 incidents. Total value £147,217. Average loss £48.63 64 incidents. Total value £3,698. Average loss £57.78 1,472 incidents. Total value £62,410. Average loss £42.40 53,319 incidents. Total value £194,108. Average loss £3.64 57,882  
01/01/2018 – 31/12/2018 2,114 incidents (January 18- November 18 only). Total value £126,239. Average loss £59.72 23 incidents (January 18- November 18 only). Total value £3,122. Average loss £135.74 2,040 incidents (January 18- November 18 only). Total value £81,501. Average loss £39.95 58,054 incidents. (January 18- November 18 only) Total value £219,895. Average loss £3.79 62,231  
         
           

* Contactless payment launched in full on 16 September 2014
** Not reported upon by Barclaycard

2. How many incidents involving payment card fraud were sent to Action Fraud or the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau

We have no record of such cases being sent to Action Fraud or the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.

3. How many incidents involving payment card fraud were sent to the British Transport Police

Our records show three cases being referred to the British Transport Police.

4. If recorded, please can you provide an average loss per incident per year and a total loss for each year
Question 3 & 4 relate to time frames & data for question 1.

Please see our response to Question One.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
Information Governance
Transport For London