Protect yourself from fraud
Protect yourself from fraud
Identity theft
Identity theft is the unlawful taking of another person's details without their permission.
Stolen information can be used to obtain many financial services goods and other forms of identification i.e. passports and driving licenses. Stolen information can range from a copy of birth certificate to copies of discarded bank or credit card statements and utility bills.
Identity thefts allows criminals to conduct criminal activity in your name with the knowledge that any follow up investigations will not lead to them. With your details they can obtain documents that are in essence real, but which contain false information making it difficult for organisations to verify who they are dealing with.
Protect yourself!
Be careful with your personal information. If you receive a telephone call from a credit card company, bank or other retail company asking to confirm certain details about yourself decline them and ask to call them back preferably through a central switchboard. Also, do not reveal your personal details when using your mobile phone in a public place. When destroying personal correspondence such as bank and credit card statements consider a shredder or even burning them on the garden refuse. If you cannot do either then tear the papers up into very small pieces and place in the refuse bin with other waste products.
If you move address remember to inform all of the companies that send personal information to you in the post. Always consider re-directing your post with Royal Mail. If you fail to do this people moving in might have free access to your personal details and misappropriate them.
How do you know if are victim to this type of fraud?
You may be a victim of identity theft if the following has happened to you:
- are you missing your regular monthly statements
- have you noticed charges to your accounts that are not yours? (Remember to check all statements especially bank and credit card.)
- have you been contacted by a debt collection agency about outstanding payments for items or services that you have not ordered
Protect yourself act quickly
Do not ignore the problem. It might not be you that has ordered some goods or opened an account but the debt falls to your name and address.
Once blacklisted for credit it may take many years to fully recover the problem. You might have difficulties in obtaining a mortgage or other bank credit.
Contact your local Police and report the crime and ask for a crime reference number to quote to the companies that allege that you have opened an account with them.
Visit the Home Office identity theft website for more information
Advance fee fraud
Advance fee fraud is a popular crime which involves a myriad of schemes and scams - mail, fax, and telephone promises designed to facilitate victims parting with money.
These schemes and scams usually claim to be from a general or politician in a foreign country who has a large sum of money (millions of pounds) which they wish to get out of a country, and need help in getting it out, with the promise of a substantial share of the cash in return.
If you receive correspondence of this sort report it to the police. Remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is!
