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Archive for Card fraud

Facebook users at risk of ID theft

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

It has been revealed that Facebook users are putting themselves at serious risk of becoming an unwitting victim of ID theft. Even posting just a few private details on your Facebook page can give fraudsters enough information to cause serious damage.

Using the information that they have come across on people’s Facebook pages, fraudsters are able to open bank accounts and take out credit cards and personal loans in their victim’s name.

The warning was sounded by a BBC1 consumer show Watchdog. The show conducted an experiment in which they set up a fictional identity on Facebook. The Watchdog team then invited 100 random people to become friends with their newly created fictional character ‘Amba’.

35 of those invited to become Amba’s friend immediately accepted the request despite knowing nothing about her. By accepting, the victims allowed the fictional Watchdog character to view any private details that they had posted on their page.

Details which could easily be accessed included date of birth as well as hometown. The Watchdog team then used these details in order to obtain more private details about their victims from other publicly available websites.

With this information Watchdog then opened up an online bank account in their victims’ names as well as successfully applying for credit cards.

One of the victims, Scott Gould, stated that he was “very surprised” by what Watchdog managed to do despite having only the slightest bits of information about him.

Users of Facebook as well as all other social networking sights are advised to be very careful when posting their details. Fraudsters often leave a trail of bad debts behind them, in Your name. Not only is the onus on you to prove that you are not responsible, it is hard work correcting your damaged credit rating.

Posted in Bad Credit, Banking, Borrowing, Card fraud, Consumer Credit, Consumer debt, Credit Card, Credit record, Financial news, Fraud, Identity theft, Personal loans, Spending, UK Finance, Unsecured loans | No Comments »

Thought chip and pin was safe? Think again!

Friday, March 28th, 2008

Since their introduction building societies and banks have been claiming that chip and pin technology is foolproof. However a new flaw at the heart of the design to prevent fraudsters from stealing your money has been exposed.

Many cash withdrawals are being carried out using cards that do not have a security chip and the shocking thing is that it is the banks themselves that are allowing this to happen.

This is how it works. Currently there are roughly 140m cards in circulation in the UK and every day an average of 7m withdrawals are made from UK cash machines. Now it is only to be expected that some of these cards will be slightly faulty therefore if banks were to reject cards with a slight fault they would then be inundated with complaints from angry customers who could not withdraw their own money.

This has left the door open to fraudsters who can use cloned bank cards that do not come with a chip to get their hands on other peoples’ cash. This leaves bank claims that the system is foolproof as completely false.

The banking industry trade association for payments has admitted that an undisclosed number of the UK’s 60,500 cash machines will allow cloned cards to withdraw money provided the cloned card is used with the correct pin number.

Because bank customers are not protected from fraud in the way that credit card holders are, account holders could find themselves fleeced of their entire balance with no redress. Not only are people finding themselves without the money to meet their home loan repayments or rent, they are going into unauthorised overdrafts and forced to borrow money to cover the shortfall.

Posted in Bank charges, Borrowing, Card fraud, Consumer Credit, Consumer debt, Financial news, Fraud, Missed payments, mortgages, Overdrafts, Personal debt, UK Finance, Unsecured loans | No Comments »

Old Credit Cards – Credit Fraud Risk

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Identity fraud is a growing concern in the UK with many Britons falling victim and costing the economy an estimated £1.7 billion a year.  One way that people can fall victim is by leaving unused credit card accounts open.  According to Apacs, at the end of 2006 31.5 million people in the UK held an average of 2 personal credit and charge cards.  However, according to the research there are around one in three cards that are no longer active, which can cause concern for some.  One reason why someone may no longer use a credit card account is because they originally opened the account to take advantage of the 0% interest on balance transfers and once the balance was paid off they never used the card because of the high interest rate, or because they transferred the balance over to another 0% credit card once the offer has expired.  This means that there are many people who are moving their balances from one account to another account and often forgetting to close the account once it is no longer in use.

If you fail to cancel your cards once you stop using them you may end up forgetting that you ever had them.  Often if your account has no activity you will most likely end up not receiving a statement to remind you of the account.  So if someone gets a hold of your information and changes the billing address, you will easily miss that and fall victim to identity fraud.  Once someone has your details they can easily go further and take out expensive personal loans or even mortgages in your name. Typically these fraudsters will very quickly default on payments, leaving the black marks on your credit record. Often the first you will know of the matter is when you yourself are turned down for loans or mortgages.

One way of protecting yourself is by checking your credit report, and if you find in-active accounts listed on your report, then you should close them the ensure you do not end up a victim of fraud.

Posted in Bad Credit, Borrowing, Card fraud, Consumer Credit, Consumer debt, Credit Card, Credit record, Fraud, Identity theft, mortgages, Personal loans, UK Finance, Zero percent cards | No Comments »

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