by Renee Ruby

Created on: December 16, 2008

Currently one of the biggest predators of our lifestyle is online credit card fraud. With all of the different outlets for theft, it is surprising that more people are not affected. The dollar loss reported from Internet crime reached an all-time high in 2007, according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center's (IC3) 2007 Internet Crime report.( http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreports.aspx) The predictions for 2008, an extremely economically challenged year look even dimmer.

So what is a consumer to do? Keeping your credit information off the internet by not making online purchases seems like an easy answer, right. Wrong. A high percentage of off-line retailers use the internet to process credit cards. The hardware and technique of running the card is no different than running the card directly through a merchant's service. You would never know that the card was running virtually through the internet.

Merchants can usually save money by using a virtual service compared to a dedicated line directly to their bank. Many small chains, and independent retail and restaurants utilize the savings of a virtual service. So no matter how cautious you are, you probably already have some personal information floating around on the internet. And no matter how vigilant the merchant is in keeping your information confidential, the ease of which an internet thief can hack into their system and steal your information is an unfortunate fact of life.

So now what? Well, since you cannot get around the fact that your info can be fraudulently obtained then how can you minimize the opportunities? There is no easy answer to that; you could become obsessive about the whole thing and insist on using nothing but cash for the rest of your life. But guess what, your information is still out there. The best way to catch it is to. Get this check your credit and banking statements every month. That is every month without fail.

The most common frauds that hackers get away with most often are small amounts. Many people only check their balances or payment due amounts and do not investigate small discrepancies. Statistics from the FBI show that the percentage of reports of fraud compared to the actual number of fraudulent actions is very small. Either meaning the fraud goes unnoticed or consumers think that they are not enough to bother with. If we are to make a dent in credit card and identity theft, we must be diligent and report all discrepancies.

For most of us, making purchases online is not only

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