Traditional cheque and credit card fraud is firmly in decline but there has been a sharp rise in the fraudulent use of card details and counterfeit cards, according to official crime figures published by the UK's Home Office.
According to the statistics, plastic card fraud rose in value by 30% between 2000 and 2001 to an estimated total of £411m, but the traditional method of using a stolen card has fallen from 50% to just over a quarter.
Instead it has been replaced by card-not-present fraud which involves using details without having to produce the actual card and by the use of counterfeit cash and credit cards.
The figures show that identity theft - opening an account with a false name or taking over an existing account - only accounted for £12m worth of fraud in 2001.