People will no longer be able to report cheque or card fraud or theft to the police under new rules being introduced by the Government.

From 1 April 2007, anyone who is a victim of this type of crime will be told to report it to their bank or building society and not police.

It will now be up to financial institutions to report such crimes to the police, which has lead to fears official figures will not truly reflect the seriousness of the problem.

Andrew Goodwill, managing director of Early Warning, an online card fraud specialist company, said the move is downgrading card fraud from a crime to an industry problem.

He asked whether the banks would have the incentive to report these crimes to the police.

"This will cause a massaging of crime figures because the banks will not be under any obligation to reveal the extent of card crime and can just write it off as a business loss," said Goodwill.

"It depends if all credit card crime reports will be passed by the banks to the police or will banks  be able to pick and choose to report only crimes where the bank has a loss, because as we know internet merchants pick up the bill for internet credit card fraud."

Payments organisation APACS admitted "banks don't always report every single incident to the police," and often just collate total loses.

However, the Home Office told Computeractive the changes, which are being brought in under the Fraud Act 2006, would make it easier for consumers who will still be refunded by the bank unless it can be proved they were negligent with their card details.

"Police forces at present will often not confirm a crime has taken place before they have had this confirmed by the financial institution that has issued the card… [making] financial the institution the first point of contact [is] removing an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and making it easier for customers, " the Home Office said.