How to beat identity fraudsters

By Jennifer Hill

LONDON (Reuters) - Shopping online has its advantages, but it also comes with its dangers: Internet-related fraud is big business.

While the introduction of chip and PIN technology has driven face-to-face fraud down, criminals are increasingly turning to cyberspace.

Card-not-present fraud -- that committed over the phone, over the Internet or by mail order -- rose 37 percent last year, according to the figures from APACS, the UK payments association.

That, coupled with overseas fraud, helped to reverse a two-year decline in total fraud losses. They rose 25 percent to 535.2 million pounds in 2007.

It seems many Britons are failing to protect themselves, regularly risking identity theft by being careless with their personal information.

Two-thirds of office workers make private phone calls at their desks and openly disclose personal information, according to a poll by insurer Sheila's Wheels. Almost the same percentage does not keep personal documents secure in the home, another survey by CPP found.

When it comes to the Internet, consumers are also not doing enough to avoid falling victim to scams such as "phishing" -- where fraudsters purport to be from banks and building societies and ask consumers to disclose their personal security information.

There were more than 10,000 reported phishing incidents in the first quarter of 2008 -- up over 200 percent on the same period last year, according to APACS.