THE situation faced by garage owner Mike Eccles, after his customers' discarded payment slips were used by criminals to purchase mail order goods (LET, March 25), is another outcome of plastic card crime which cost £135 million last year.

Card Watch - the plastic card fraud prevention campaign run by the UK banking industry - works with police and retail associations, including those representing the petrol trade, to combat this type of fraud which grew by 36 per cent in 1998 on the year before.

Being the victim of card crime is extremely inconvenient and stressful and to help prevent plastic card crime you should:

guard your cards, but if they do go missing report the loss to the card issuer immediately

dispose of payment slips carefully

check your account statements for transactions you did not make

MELANIE HUBBARD, Card Watch, Mercury House, Triton Court, Finsbury Square, London.

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