Cardholders 'Slack on Security'

Consumers should be more aware of the threat posed by credit card fraudsters, Which? has warned.

The group conducted a survey of its members, finding that a majority used their mother's maiden name as a security password for their card: a detail which can easily be found out by criminals. The Which? poll also found around 50 per cent of respondents use just one PIN number for all of their cards, a similarly dangerous situation.

Online shopping, which has seen increasing fraudulent activity among card thieves, was also found to be another area in which consumers are slack. Around half of the survey agreed that they never checked whether or not a shopping website kept card details secure before buying goods from it, for example.

Martyn Hocking at Which? commented: "There's a lot more people can do to prevent fraud occurring…shredding documents and checking your bank statements are a good start, but people need to be wise to basic fraud risks such as using their mother's maiden name as a password, or shopping on websites that aren't secure."

Which? questioned around 4,000 of its members over the course of its research.