Chip and PIN pushes crooks online

The success of Chip and PIN in combating high street fraud has resulted in credit card criminals moving their activities online, new research reveals.

The Chip and PIN scheme, under which shoppers enter a PIN number rather than signing a receipt, resulted in a 13% decrease in total losses to card fraud in the six months to June 2005 compared to the same period last year.

According to the figures from the Association of Payment Clearing Services (APACS), fraud dropped from £252.6m to £219.4m.

However, while the new technology has been successful in deterring the criminals from the high street, many have been attracted to commit fraud elsewhere.

Card not present fraud - which includes transactions via the web, phone and mail order - rose 29% to £91m in the first half of 2005, APACS said.

To combat this growing trend, the organisation has launched a online security awareness campaign to help shoppers in the run-up to Christmas.

APACS research shows one in eight shoppers admit to failing to log out when shopping online, leaving their financial details available to others, while a quarter of consumers do not check whether an e-commerce website is secure before using it.

Sandra Quinn, director of corporation communications at APACS, said: "These latest online fraud losses are comparatively low considering the huge number of transactions now being carried out online.

"It is clear that fraudsters are having more success targeting cards than online bank accounts - so our campaign is focused on cardholders."