About 1.2 million people or 7 per cent of the Australian adult and teenage population were victims of credit card fraud in 2011, an Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) survey found. Their loss was equivalent to $1.4 billion.

About 55 per cent were credit card rip-offs, 42 per cent were financial scams and 3 per cent identity theft. Credit card frauds actually almost doubled to 662,000 cases from 383,000 since ABS's last survey in 2007. That's equivalent to one in 27 people affected by such crimes compared to only one in 42 in 2007.

In the 2007 survey, 806,000 Aussies claim to have been victims of credit card fraud.

The report said 28 per cent of the victims lost between $500 and $1,000, another 19 per cent lost between $1,000 and $5,000 and 4.5 per cent more than $5,000.

Consumer group Choice said the boost in credit card fraud is not surprising because of the increased use of plastic money as more Australians shop online. Choice spokeswoman Ingrid Just advised consumers to look for online security elements on ecommerce sites they use. She cited as example the padlock symbol which is an indicator of a secure site and URL addresses that are https and not just http.

Peter Campbell, spokesman of National Identity Fraud Awareness Week, said Australians are at higher risk of having their details stolen and use for their personal gain. He said despite higher levels of awareness among consumers to protect their personal information, new technologies remain a challenge for them.

Mr Campbell cited the pay-as-you-go payment methods and MasterCard's PayPass in which card holders do not need to sign in so that crooks who steal other people's identity have little chance of getting caught.

He also cited the inclusion of birthdays in social media sites as another risk to identity theft because the date of birth is crucial information for people who want to steal identities.

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