INTERNET travel site operators have dismissed research that claims buying products on the Web is 20 times more likely to lead to credit-card fraud than if the purchase is made over the telephone.
The Credit-Card Research Group has issued a report suggesting the boom in Internet shopping is fuelling a huge increase in card fraud.
The report says that as many as one in 10 of Internet retail transactions are fraudulent compared with fewer than one in 200 of traditional traders’ business.
The CCRG report, called Electronic Commerce: No Trade Without Trust, calls for the credit-card industry, retailers and the Government to introduce new safeguards to protect against credit-card fraud over the Internet.
According to PC giant Compaq, travel is the third most popular product to be bought on the Internet and could therefore be a target for credit-card fraudsters.
But James Vaile, who manages the UK site of Microsoft’s travel site Expedia, rubbished the findings of the report.
He said: “This is ridiculous and incorrect. Our encryption technology has ensured that there has not been a single case of fraud since the Expedia begun in October 1996.
“When we take credit-card information, it is encrypted so no-one has access to it and the code is uncrackable.”
Sir Bob Geldof’s Deckchair.com site launched earlier this year was also dismissive about the findings.
The site’s operations manager Nathan O’Sullivan said: “We use secure technology that encrypts information making it pretty secure.
“People are still unsure because its new technology and they think hackers can get to their credit-card information but the codes that exist make me confident this is very unlikely to happen.”