E-commerce in the UK, which generated 拢7bn in sales in 2002, is now one of the main targets for card-not-present fraud.
According to a Visa, e-commerce sales in the UK have grown by 120% since the first quarter of 2002 and are set to grow to 拢30bn by 2007.
With the exponential growth of "card not present" fraud, where people use stolen credit card numbers to buy goods and services, has risen at a similar rate and now accounts for 30% of total fraud.
Since 1993, the trend in credit card fraud has changed dramatically from lost or stolen cards to fraudulent possession of card details and the production of counterfeit cards.
Earlier this week, a computer operator who carried out the UK's biggest credit card scam to date was jailed for nine years. Sunnil Mahtani stole the credit card details of 9,000 cards.
Mahtani was jailed for seven years for the scam, which netted more than 拢2m. The 9,000 names belonged to passengers of the Heathrow Express.
Verified by Visa was launched by Visa in April 2002 for the authentication of e-commerce payments. Among the most recent to join the now 8,000 retailers, which is up 4,000 since June, are Lloyds TSB and online travel firm Opodo.
Stuart Walters, chief information officer at Opodo, said: "Despite the growth of e-commerce, many customers still have concerns about the security of shopping online."
According to a Visa survey, 70% of cardholders who had already shopped online said they would do so more often with improved security.
The highest risk categories of card-not-present fraud are phone-card top-ups and buying tickets from online agencies -- these are the areas targeted by the campaign.
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