New figures suggest that the extent to which criminals are targeting the internet for credit and debit card fraud is far greater than thought. The banking industry has collected data that shows card losses from phone, internet and mail order crime has totalled around £290 million. It has been reported that if failed attempts had been successful then the total amount of losses could have become £500 million. The conservative party have called for a minister to deal with the online credit card crime.

The BBC conducted an undercover investigation and revealed how easy it was to obtain stolen credit and debit cards via the internet. Two of their journalists had posed as computer hackers and was able to infiltrate a webpage that was selling thousands of stolen credit and debit card details which had been stolen from small online retail companies. When the cards were used, they were able to trace the fraudulent transactions to a number of addresses around the UK and then confronted the people who had signed for the goods that they had bought fraudulently. The information was then passed on to the police to deal with accordingly.

Nowadays instead of selling stolen cheque books down the local pub, criminals have moved over to the internet.

The Third Man Company is a company that develops fraud screening solutions and they believe that the criminals mainly use the stolen credit and debit card details in order to buy electronic gadgets such as satellite navigation systems, lap top computers and PDAs. With the purchases they then ship the items abroad and sell them in countries were the value for such items is a lot higher than it is in the UK, or they would sell it locally for people in their local pub for half the price.

The shadow home secretary David Davis believes that there should be a central place to report cyber crime and to have specialist prosecutors to deal with it.

Andrew McClelland, of Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), which is a body that represents online retailers, said it was time the government noticed the market place was making a major contribution to the economy and consumers need to be protected. He also said:

"If you're committing a crime online then there is a high probability that you'll get away with it and even if you are caught a fairly high probability again that the punishment won't be that severe."

The Association of Payment Clearing Services (also known as APACS) also said that they found that there was a 25% rise in the fraudulent use of UK credit and debit cards with losses amounting to around £535million. Around £290 million of the fraud had taken place online.

To make matters more difficult British Bank account details are on sale over the internet for as little of £5. Most people who live in the EU identities more at risk of being stolen as they are easier to sell than American identities because EU identities can be used across the EU much easily.

According to the twice yearly published report on internet security found that British bank account details were the most advertised for sale in black-market forums where stolen information is traded.

The most frequent victims targeted are high-value businesses, as the details could be sold for more than those of accounts with lower balances belonging to consumers. The report also found there has been an increase in sophisticated and personalised attacks on consumers.

After credit cards, selling full identities are also on the increase and that even stolen eBay accounts were now being put up for sale. So when shopping online be very vigilant and make sure the site you use is one that you can check. Also check your card statements regularly in order to check for any discrepancies.