Wow, now that's a headline - but lets remember that its only an estimate by The Third Man and reported here by the BBC News website.

I am not for one minute trying to say that online fraud is not a problem. It is of course a major headache and expense for retailers and credit card companies. But here is some perspective -shoplifting on the high street loses retailers £1.5 billion - 3 times more than online - according to this Times article.

So this story isn't about getting mugged when you shop online. This is about criminals trying to take advantage of retailers not checking where they are sending goods or being duped, unwittingly by false credit card details - probably stolen from insecure online websites.

Shopping online is still safe - as long as you follow some simple rules.

• Only use recommended websites that have been checked by others - like shopsafe.co.uk
• Use a site that is secure and uses a padlock system
• Look for a badge saying the site is PCI Compliant - more of that later
• Try to use a credit card online - it's the law that you can get some of your money back if it all goes wrong
• Don't reply to emails asking you to input any personal information after clicking a link - it's probably a scam. You can always phone the company to check