The Island?s credit card holders are being warned they face a fresh fraud threat.

Bank of Bermuda card processing manager Wayne Pimentel said credit card industry bosses had issued an alert about fraudulent e-mails requesting credit card information.

Recipients are told their credit card has been stolen or is being used by another person.

The e-mail then requests the recipient fill out a form signing up to a zero liability programme by giving their credit card number, pin number and address.

The poorly written threat has yet to surface in Bermuda but Mr. Pimentel wanted to pass on the warning given by MasterCard and Visa before anyone fell victim to this or similar schemes.

Customers at any of the Island?s banks could be vulnerable and he estimates there are around 100,000 cards in circulation in Bermuda as many people hold several. The e-mail was sent to people around the world and does not name specific banks.

Mr. Pimentel said: ?They are hoping someone doesn?t read it fully. They might just look at it and give a panicked reaction.

?That?s why they sensationalise it to get a quick rather than prudent response.?

Even if only a small percentage of people were duped lucrative rewards can be reaped by the con artists.

He said the bank?s policy was to automatically reimburse cardholders from the time they reported the fraud.

?They have to come in with the original card, if they are able to do that we will cover the original fraud.?

If not decisions on whether to reimburse are taken on a case-by-case basis.

?We have to make sure they are not lending it to someone. There has to be some onus on not being negligent.?

Bank of Bermuda customers hit by fraud tended to be one-off cases, said Mr. Pimentel, where a criminal has taken an individual?s card data and raided the account. ?There is no set pattern.?

He was reluctant to say how many cardholders fell victim at his bank but said his customers tended to be vigilant world travellers who constantly checked statements for discrepancies.

?It makes all the difference in the world to have a quick discovery.?

He said the bank?s software also threw up alerts for suspicious activity on a 24-hour basis.

?If a card is used in a restaurant in New York and then an hour later it?s presented at a retailers in France we ask how did that happen.?

Credit card fraud runs the gamut from small time operators finding discarded receipts in bins to highly organised gangs who kept details scanned off magnetic strips by swipe machines. A replica card is then made and can be sent to other countries. When patterns form, anti-fraud forces can pinpoint where the cards are being copied and set up a sting operation for criminals who haven?t had the wit to move their operation around.

?You would be surprised how arrogant they are sometimes if they are getting away with it,? said Mr. Pimentel.

It only needs one corrupt employee in an outlet to capture the details.

Details taken in one country can then be passed on to be used in another country which the victim might not even have visited.

?We have seen fraud come out of just about every country,? said Mr. Pimentel.

But the actual fraudulent transactions tended to be processed in Far East countries such as China, Honk Kong, Malaysia and Singapore and some Latin American countries.

In November a Bank of Butterfield customer had $2,000 plundered from her account by someone in Turkey after someone got her debit card number, even though she had never been to Turkey.