A sharp rise in the number of consumers being hit by "phishing" and other online scams dented progress made in reducing UK card fraud last year.
APACS, the UK payment associations, said overall credit and debit card fraud fell by three per cent in 2006 largely as a result of a slump in UK domestic card crime.
The total amount lost as a result of card fraud dipped to #428 million, down from #439.4 million in 2005.
The fall was driven by a 13 per cent reduction in UK domestic fraud, but was largely offset by a 43 per cent increase in overseas card crime.
UK retail fraud dropped by nearly half last year, due mainly to chip and PIN technology. It means that since 2004, shop transaction fraud has fallen from #218.8 billion to #72.1 million.
But APACS noted that criminals are still targeting UK consumers’ cards and using the data to create fakes that can be used in countries that have not upgraded to chip and PIN.
As a result, the cost of overseas fraud rose from #82.8 million to #118.2 million, figures showed. This compares to a #46.8 million drop in the cost of card scams conducted within the UK, bringing the 2006 total down to #309.8 million.
The main factors for the downward UK trend were incidents relating to lost and stolen cards, and the intercepting of mail – with losses down 23 per cent and 62 per cent respectively.
But counterfeiting rose by three per cent year-on-year, while online banking was up by 44 per cent, figures showed.
The largest growing card fraud, according to APACS figures, was through a phenomenon known as "phishing".
In a phishing incident, fraudsters set up a fake version of a genuine bank website and then send out thousands or even millions of spam emails driving consumers to the site.
The idea is to fool people into giving up confidential personal banking information online.
Last year there were 14,156 incidents of phishing recorded. This compares to just 1,713 in 2005.
