As the clock counts down to the October EMV liability shift,experts caution that a wave of card-not-present fraud is headed forthe United States – and the only question now is when it willhit.

EMV's long-standing pledge has been that it thwarts the use offake credit cards at the point of sale. And as has been the casefor other countries that have migrated to EMV, that kind of fraudhas indeed declined. However, much of those declines have beencountered by corresponding increases in card-not-present fraud.

Canh Tran, CEO of the Chicago-based fraud analytics firm Rippleshot, said that in Canada,card-present fraud fell by more than half after it moved to EMV,but card-not-present fraud more than doubled between 2008 and 2013,for example. In the United Kingdom, card-present fraud dropped by50% after chip-and-PIN arrived, but big increases incard-not-present fraud actually drove the overall rate up in theyears after conversion there.