Cash card cloning and identity theft. Hurts like hell!

How would you feel if one day you open your bank statement and find that someone has had it away with your savings.

At a Business Networking breakfast this morning the guest speaker was a Detective Inspector from the Bedfordshire Police. A frightening statistic he revealed was that identity theft generates over £20 billion for the organised crime gangs. That is a staggering amount of money. Did you also know that over 11 million National Insurance numbers have been issued to people who don’t actually exist!  That puts the problem of identity theft beyond belief! How can we stop this?

The Inspector told us a few tales from his experiences, containing invaluable information, and left me in no doubt that my own home security procedures were not good enough to repel these potential thieves. I normally shred any financial documents that are destined for the bin but just chuck junk mail as is. This is wrong!!  Junk mail carries my name and address, and, in some cases even the salutation e.g. “Dear John” In those circumstances that is probably because I have purchased from that company sometime in the past. This information can be used by the criminal underworld to extract more information from the supplier. So, when you bin the junk mail make sure you at least shred the name and address bit from the front.

Financial institutions will never ask you for sensitive information over the phone or by email. If you get requests like this either ignore them or reverse the security and ask them to identify details from your account e.g. last transaction etc. Following this, if you suspect that there are dodgy dealings going on, contact the police as soon as possible.

Criminal gangs, which according to our police source are often led by Tamil Tiger supporters (who would have thought it!), have been known to install a self adhesive metal strip containing a miniature camera lens (mobile phone type) directly above the keypad at a cash point. Another device is attached to the card reader and they are ready to steal your bank account. Your card details are gathered and your pin entry is recorded….bingo! The sneaky thief now has control over your bank balance. It’s going down!

The card trap is another criminal invention.  A piece of black plastic is folded and pushed into, and the ends attached to, the card reader. Two slits are cut into the black plastic strip to prevent the card from being returned. The next unsuspecting customer is unable to retrieve his card and cannot understand why. Along comes a “good Samaritan” who offers lots of advice including pin re-entry. ….bingo! If this happens to you, why not pretend to phone home but actually phone 999. Be calm and make sure that you get the details across e.g. “Hi Honey, It’s me. My cashcard got swallowed by the Barclays cash point on high street. I am trying to recover it with the help of a passerby. Can you get someone to come down here …”. The operator should have the intelligence to recognise a cry for help and despatch a patrol to rescue you and apprehend the villain.

We must be more vigilant and fight this widespread contamination that is eating into our hard earned savings. Spread the word. When you come across information pieces like this send them to your friends. It’s easy, just click on “File” on the top menu bar and then “Send Link”. It may well save your friends from the soul destroying experience that is identity theft.