South-east London tops the league of fraudulent card transactions in the UK, according to a study conducted by two of the country's leading identity verification firms.

New research published by The 3rd Man and 192.com Business Services has identified the UK’s major fraud hotspots, revealing exactly how card criminals ply their trade.

Based on an analysis of over 30 million ‘good’ and ‘bad’ card transactions in the first six months of 2008, it was found that south-east London - particularly the postcode areas SE28, SE18, SE15, SE6 and SE17 - houses the worst offenders.

Outside of the capital, card-not-present fraud hotspots include Manchester, Romford, Ilford, Dartford, Coventry and Nottingham.

Wales and Northern Ireland are the least fraudulent places in the UK, with only Cardiff and Belfast recording notable levels of card fraud activity.

"Investigations like these continue to show that card crime is a major and growing threat to consumers and retailers," said Andrew Goodwill, fraud expert and director for The 3rd Man.

"By pooling and sharing online retailers’ transaction data and their fraud experiences, we can see exactly how that trend is changing and continuing to grow. Fraudsters simply don’t give up."

The research conducted by 192.com and The Third Man indicated that fraudsters use a variety of methods to steal identities.

"They work in bars where the pay is rubbish and they get treated like idiots by the boss and the customers. So its like Christmas for them when I come along and offer them a way to make shed loads of cash without any risk," one unconvicted fraudster, who was interviewed by 192.com, said in an interview.

"Chat rooms give me a way to spot potential victims," said another. "It takes a while to build up trust but that’s OK - it’s worth the effort in the end. As time goes on, people give out more and more stuff."