Credit card and other plastic card fraud has increased while other acquisitive crime has declined, new figures show.

About 6.4 per cent of card owners reported an incident of card fraud in the past year, according to the 2008-09 British Crime Survey (BCS).

The figure had been around 4.7 per cent in 2007-08.

Card owners were either informed by their banks or spotted these frauds on their bank statements themselves.

Nowadays, panic among people is rife. Fifty-three per cent of people who use credit or debit cards, as an alternative to cash, say they are afraid of being targeted by card fraudsters.

It would hold customers in good stead to keep regular tabs on their money transactions. They should also take special care when destroying bank statements.

Exercising caution and protecting their credit card or other plastic card details and baking information will reduce their vulnerability to card crime.

On the other hand, car and home insurance customers would be happy to know that theft from vehicles, business properties and homes have decreased by 50 per cent, reported the BCS.

Theft from cars where a key had been used or a door had been accidentally left unlocked increased significantly, from nine to 23 per cent and nine to 22 per cent respectively.

The decrease of vehicular theft which involved tampering with a lock reflected the rise in the number of security features now available to car insurance customers.

A recent survey carried out by Sainsbury's home insurance found an increase in the number of burglaries where thieves adopted fake identities and distracted the owner, accounting for £1,230 worth of contents stolen from three million homes in the past five years.

BCS also found that 78 per cent of burglary victims took some form of safety precaution after the crime to prevent a recurrence in the future.