How to Understand the Penalties for Credit Card Fraud

Credit card fraud transpires when someone secretly uses your information to make purchases or engages in some type of illegal credit card billing. The FTC reports that credit card fraud affects roughly 9 million Americans a year. The penalties for credit card fraud can include arrest, prosecution and/or financial retribution.

Things You'll Need

• Phone
• Computer with Internet access

Instructions

1. Learn about the process for investigating credit card fraud by visiting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) online (see Resources below). You can search different types of crimes such as white collar or cyber crime.

2. Gather your local FBI office information online. Contact an agent to ask questions to understand the penalties for credit card fraud in your area. The FBI sometimes works with local authorities to prosecute these crimes.

3. Familiarize yourself with identity theft, as this goes hand in hand with credit card fraud. This can be a federal offense. Read the articles at the Reference Desk tab of the Federal Trade Commission Identity Theft Web site (see Resources below).

4. Review your state's penalties for crimes. Credit card fraud is usually prosecuted at the local level, such as filing a charge of burglary to your police department. In other states, a particular dollar amount has to be established.

5. Study maximum fine penalties. Understand that in some cases of fraud, violators are required to pay restitution at a set amount. It can be equal to or more than the gross value obtained by the offense or loss to victim. Read case histories at the Press Room of the FBI Web site.

Tips & Warnings

• Generally, for a credit card fraud case to be investigated on a federal level, there needs to be more than $2,000 in charges.

• When credit card fraud occurs across state lines, criminals are often never prosecuted because the dollar amounts are too low for local law enforcement to pay for extradition.