The Money Stop

Consumers should be more wary of people trying to steal their identity details, an expert at Equifax has advised.

Neil Munroe, external affairs director at Equifax, said that an individual’s personal credit profile could be worth “several times more” than their maximum limit on their credit card.

According to CIFAS, the total number of fraud cases the organisation received by the end of the first quarter of 2008 was 52,286, which represented an increase of ten per cent compared with the same period in 2007.

The number of occurrences which involved a fraudster impersonating someone in order to takeover their bank account were up by 146 per cent.

Mr Monroe commented that the authorities should also make an effort to combat the issue: “There is a list of precautions that individuals should take but it’s not just an individual’s fight, it is a combined fight and the government need to be doing more around it and so do companies.”

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