SHELL Fuel and Fleet Services is seizing 200 fraudulent fuel and credit cards a month at its service stations. The company has more than doubled the number of seizures after joining the Association for Payment Clearing Services' Card Watch scheme.

This warns fleet managers to check invoices for strange spending patterns, and educates and incentivises service station staff on how to combat card crime with a £30 reward for every fraudulent transaction they stop. Before signing up to the scheme in April of this year, Shell was only detecting about 70 fraudulent cards per month.

Dave Clarke, Shell's fraud investigator, said: 'What we need to do now is keep the momentum going. Fraud is big business and I'd like to see us seizing in the region of 500 cards a month. That might seem like a huge number but when you consider the amount of cards in circulation it's definitely achievable.'