WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson has warned that tap-and-go credit card fraud is a growing problem.
Annual statistics show the number of reported crimes in Western Australia is on a downward trend, but Mr Dawson said fraudulent use of credit cards was growing.
"Thieves are breaking into houses, homes and stealing credit cards from people and are able to very quickly fraudulently obtain property by simply going under $100 in every purchase," he said.
From July 2017 to June 2018, the number of credit card fraud cases reported was 26,151, or an average of more than 500 a week.
While Commissioner Dawson said the "broad, pleasing element" of the annual statistics was that crime across almost all categories had plateaued or was going down, fraudulent card usage was a concern.
"That is an increasing trend, we'll be making very strong efforts and you'll see this emerge in the coming months, a public education campaign," he said.
"You need to treat your credit card like you do hard cash. You shouldn't be treating your credit card in tap-and-go any differently than a 100-dollar bill, if you possess one.
"Retailers also need to be aware and report to police if there are any matters which are suspicious."
Not all cases of credit card fraud involved tap-and-go, but police say it accounts for a large part of the total.
The category of 'Fraud (Credit Card)' was only created in June 2017 while previous to this, cases were included in a category named 'Fraud (Not Elsewhere Classified).
But even taking that into account, there was a significant jump in cases on a month-by-month basis from the middle of 2017.
Mr Dawson said police would be liaising with banks and financial institutions on ways to mitigate the fraudulent use of cards.
He said policy discussions could include issues such as the $100 limit, and the number of times a card is used before it was cut off.
