Over the last 3 years Australia has seen its rate of credit card and debit card fraud triple, with Australian consumers falling victim to credit card skimming and other similar fraud more than 657,000 times during 2010 at a cost of $170 million.

We understand that these is organized crime involvement currently from countries such as from Romania, Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka all targeting Australia.

These criminals are perpetuating large-scale card skimming operations affecting Australia in particular.

It seems that organized crime groups have also targeted Australian superannuation funds, using stolen identities to access savings or unclaimed superannuation savings.

“Evidence has emerged of groups targeting superannuation holdings,” the report said.

The ACC has issued a warning to everyone to be vigilant given current the rates of identity theft involving organised crime posing a critical level of risk.

During 2010 there were 593,819 fraudulent credit card transactions worth $145,854,208, compared with 241,063 fraudulent transactions totalling $85,215,615 in 2006.

Debit card fraud has had a much more significant escalation probably due to the fact that more Australians are now using debit cards than in prior years. Debit card fraud during 2010 totaled $24,471,348 from 63,894 fraudulent transactions – representing an average of just under $400 per transaction. Card holders who do not spend time reconciling their card statements could easily not even pick up their loss.

When new chip and PIN technology becomes compulsory in Australia in 2013, the frequency of card fraud through internet or telephone transactions can grow even further.

The ACC warned that card skimming i currently one of the most prominent types of identity theft, with online fraud becoming the new front line in organised crime.

Details on a card skimmed in Australia can be sent immediately to another country to be used illegally, and the ACC said it had “intelligence” on large-scale identity fraud factories producing dodgy documents to order.

Unfortunately due to the nature of this crime making arrests is rather difficult.

The popularity of wi-fi is only likely to make it simpler for criminals to access and steal personal data, while high-speed broadband would make tracking criminal activity more challenging.