Crimes of deception are on the rise, at least in Victoria, with the simple theft and misuse of contactless payment cards behind almost all the recent rise in recorded crime in the state.The rise in 'crime of deception' offences was around 11,600 over the past year to March 2014, Victoria Police said yesterday. This is the fourth consecutive quarter in which the state's police have voiced frustration with the payments method."One of the main drivers over the last little while have been deceptions and these tap-and-go [payment] cards," Ken Lay, Victoria's police commissioner, said."We're seeing many, many thefts of motor cars, handbags and burglaries where people are looking for these cards, are getting hold of them and within hours of getting them, they're going into stores and using them.""So you're getting this flow-on effect ... mainly because of these types of offences."Kim Wells, minister for police, said banks needed to "do more" to combat this crime."The banks simply need to do more to crack down on this. This is simply not good enough," he said.Wells said it was not sufficient for banks to tell customers not to worry because they would cover the costs.The Australian Payments Clearing Association estimated fraud on scheme debit and credit cards, due to card theft, at A$19 million last year, representing only seven per cent of an overall fraud bill of $263 million.Contactless payments are becoming more common, with 40 per cent of all face-to-face Visa card transactions in Australia made using payWave. Banks and payment schemes seem surprised at the Victorian crime data, which provides a different view to that collated by the industry. No other state police service has highlighted the issue in the manner of Victoria's over the last year.The industry also seems to think existing initiatives will reduce card fraud.Lance Blockley, managing director of RFi Consulting, writing for ANZ Blue Notes, said that "the removal of signature [and the introduction of PIN@POS] will pass painlessly and the level of fraud occurring on point of sale card transactions will markedly diminish."