Gary Fitton, director of lending at the Post Office, said "Many people have over stretched themselves over the Christmas period and have little choice but to use their credit card in the New Year."
Future rises in gas and electricity prices announced by the major utility companies will also hit consumers hard, and finance minister Alistair Darling has opened talks with Ofgem, the energy watchdog, to discuss the 'regrettable' rises.
Despite consumer reliance on credit cards there are still worries about fraud, both on-line and in the outside world. A new report by analysts, NetBenefit, revealed that 80 per cent of consumers are worried about how safe their financial data is when shopping on-line. More than 85 per cent of the worlds online population has used the Internet for purchases, however seven in ten failed to completely understand the safety procedures. One in five had no idea what the padlock symbol in their browser represented.
Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer at NetBenefit, said "If you have any doubts about the website you are visiting, look for the golden padlock and just right click to find out whether the certificate owner and the website match."
"The industry has put standards in place to provide the online shopper with confidence but in actual fact many shoppers simply do not know what they are supposed to be looking for."
The police's Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit seized ?107 million in estimated fraud savings in 2007. They recovered more than 103,000 compromised card details, whilst investigating and unsettling more than 400 organised criminal gangs.
John Folan, head of the unit, said, "The success of the past year is a clear message to the gangs in the UK that we will continue to target them and frustrate their fraudulent activity."
Internet users have long been warned not to give out credit card and banking details online, with the governments Get Safe Online Initiative targeting social networking site users.
Recently a large international credit card cloning scam was discovered in the UK. Thousands of pounds worth of money from bank accounts of British people were allegedly siphoned off from foreign locations.
It was the latest is a series of credit card swindling where card details are recorded by hidden cameras whilst making payments for fuel at petrol stations. The images are then sent abroad where they are used to withdraw money. In this case hundreds of car owners in Lincolnshire became victims of the credit scam. The fraudsters then produced replica credit cards, which they send around the world.
The introduction of chip and pin to replace signing for purchases was implemented to combat credit card fraud. However criminals will always find ways to fraud the general public. The police continue to insist you stay aware and alert, when both using your credit card online and on the high street, in order to make it even harder for the criminals to prosper.
