Don't take all the credit; credit card fraud is a growing crime. Here are tips on how to protect your business.

Last September, Ala Moana Shopping Center personnel stopped two California tourists as they tried to buy luxury watches with stolen credit cards. One of the men had purchased a $13,000 watch from the same store the day before and had accidentally signed a name different than the embossed name on the credit card. Store personnel recognized the man and called the Honolulu Police Department, which led to an arrest.

Police also found a dozen fake identification cards and stolen credit cards. One of the names belonged to a dead person. "They (bogus ID cards) looked really authentic," recalls Lt. Patricia Tomasu of the Honolulu Police Department's criminal investigation division. "These were drivers licenses from different states, with the exact same picture on them. Either they had an in somewhere at a licensing bureau, or they had a really good way of doing this."

It is possible, too, that the men created new credit cards, by a process called "skimming," which uses a pager-size device to swipe and steal information from a credit card's magnetic stripe.

Four years ago, the HPD recorded 3,245 complaints of fraud and forgery (a broad category that includes counterfeit checks and Internet and lottery scams). Last year, there were 7,220 cases, about 600 were identity, thefts (when a person uses someone else's personal information or account to make purchases). Of the identity thefts, more than 50 percent were credit-card frauds.

Local numbers parallel what is happening across the country. Nationwide complaints of identity theft doubled from 86,168 to 161,819 between 2001 and 2002, according to the Federal Trade Commission. About 42 percent of those complaints were related to credit-card fraud (in which thieves make charges to existing accounts or open new cards using other people's information).

It is an international problem, too. This past summer, law-enforcement officials cracked down on several Japanese groups that bought merchandise with stolen credit cards. Not only did the organized ring operate in Waikiki, it also hit stores in Australia, Guam and Southeast Asia. As a result last July, the Hawaii Retail Merchants Association, asked the U.S. Secret Service to conduct workshop on the use of fake credit cards and counterfeit cash. The program was well received. The organization also works with law-enforcement officials to send daily e-mail advisories to local retailers. "It's all confidential information that they share, hut it helps them to look out for the next target and track who is doing what, who is caught where," says Carol Pregill, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii. There are about 60 members on the e-mail alert list.