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How Do You Know Your Identity Isn’t Being Used in Crime?
It’s 10am on a bright summer’s Saturday when the postman delivers the normal flurry of bills and junk mail through the letterbox. You open the one from your credit card company in the knowledge that you paid everything off the month before.
However, your face turns to horror as you notice your credit limit has been maxed out by multiple purchases from an online store.
According to the credit card company, you now owe £6450. How can that be?
It could be that you’ve been a victim of identity fraud. Somebody has used your credit card details to buy goods, and you’ve been landed with the bill. But how could this have happened?
In fact, the answer is simple; people in the UK are far too trusting with their documents and don’t take the necessary precautions to ensure their data is safe. For example, do you shred all of your statements? Do you simply throw utility bills and other letters that have important account information on them straight into the recycling bin?
Unfortunately, many people do, and that’s why ID fraud is becoming such big business.
How does it work?
If you have a bill from a bank, it will have your home address, account number and sort code on it. Using this, it could be possible for a fraudster to get access to your account via online banking (if your security answers are based on information there) or even send fraudulent letters asking for more personal information.
And then there’s on-line banking. Are all your passwords secure? Do you use simple to guess ones that anyone who knows you could fathom in a couple of minutes?
More importantly, how do you re-set your password? If it’s via security questions then how hard are those questions? Does everyone know your mother’s maiden name?
Take precautions
There are so many people not taking precautions about their ID both off line and on line that it’s easy for criminals to steal information.
You have to make it harder for them, and there are a couple of ways to do this. They’re also very inexpensive ways and simple to implement.
Firstly, shred all sensitive information. Credit card bills, statements, utility bills, shred them all when you’re finished with them. Don’t be tempted to simply pop them straight into the recycling bin.
The same with credit cards – make sure any old cards are destroyed completely so the magnetic strip and chip cannot be used.
On-line you should use a password manager to ensure you can keep your passwords complex. Use a unique password for each site and use the generator provided with the manager to randomize them.
All in all, take your identity seriously, you could lose thousands of pounds via criminals using very simple methods to hijack your details.
