{"id":8108,"date":"2021-03-21T09:57:12","date_gmt":"2021-03-21T09:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.foxymonkey.com\/?p=8108"},"modified":"2021-03-21T09:57:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T09:57:14","slug":"identity-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foxymonkey.com\/identity-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity fraud: Is someone stealing your identity for a profit?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Identity fraud is real and it’s scary. You can lose a lot of money and your peace of mind as well. At best, you will waste hours on the phone with 3rd parties. At worst, you will be left owing money to credit cards you didn’t even know you had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to show you how you can protect yourself from identity fraud and how to find out if someone is stealing your identity for a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do I know all that? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a victim of impersonation. Someone was caught stealing letters from my mailbox and opening credit cards on my name! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, I found out quite early plus they did not succeed in opening an account. No animals were harmed in the making of this impersonation.<\/em> But things could have turned out quite differently and very costly shall I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How an identity fraud is committed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Someone knows your name and where you live. It’s easy to find out about this info – either by grabbing a few letters from your mailbox, social media or just public info on Companies House \/ Electoral roll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can obtain some more info about you, like your date of birth by searching online. You’ll be surprised how much we voluntarily reveal every day. Even if you’re not on social, it’s easy, trust me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The physical mailbox in particular contains golden info about you. Full name, address, bank account, sort code and transactions you made. Even if you only use ‘paperless’ bank statements there’s plenty of junk arriving every day like CapitalOne “apply now” credit cards waiting for you to reply back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ok. Once the attacker has enough info about you, they apply for a credit card or a new bank account pretending it’s you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If they succeed, they buy the new macbook pro on your credit card, they put you in debt and sell it on eBay for a profit. Repeat until you find out you’re impersonated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then it may be too late! You owe \u00a310,000 to the credit card you didn’t even know you had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I used to work at a fintech challenger bank, 30% of all applications were fraudulent!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let that sink for a moment. 30%. We rejected hundreds of ‘applicants’ every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, it’s quite easy to steal identity these days especially if you’re not paying much attention. This is why you need to be vigilant and proactive. <\/strong>Luckily for us, it’s also easy to protect against identity fraud attacks and I’m going to show you how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to find out if someone is using your identity<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The best form of protection is prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can prevent 99% of identity fraud by checking your credit report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in the UK, banks and credit card providers have to check you are trustworthy before they can give you a loan. Yes, a credit card is a form of a loan. Your score is kept by credit agencies like Experian and Equifax who maintain a file for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a good credit score, you qualify for a card. Otherwise, they won’t risk lending you money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When an attacker applies for a credit product on your behalf, the card provider will have to look you up to see if you’re creditworthy. This will leave a trail on your credit report. A ‘credit search’ will show up that Santander bank, for instance, looked you up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of sites where you can see your credit file, often with the credit agency directly. Personally, the simplest solution I found is the website Checkmyfile.com<\/a>. The first month is free and then it’s \u00a315 per month but you can start\/stop whenever you want. I quite like the user-friendly interface. They will show you all past history, even if you pay only once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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