It’s a fact of life, with greater technical innovation there are increasing opportunities for credit theft. The most common way this is achieved is by someone stealing your identity. With just a few details an “identity thief” can effectively take over your life! They can take out bank loans, phone contracts, credit cards, and more. In one case an identity thief even took over someone’s house and then re-mortgaged it!

So, you say it won’t happen to you? But the fact is it will eventually happen to you unless precautions are taken. Suppose someone gets access to your post, from this they can get utility invoices which in turn can be used as proof of residence to take out a bank loan. Once someone has your name and address they can also check out Facebook and maybe find your date of birth and photo. The thief now has enough information to do just about anything.

Just imagine you are a landlord letting a property to someone, they have all of this fake data, when they default on their rent you will never find them, you will only trace the individual whose identity was stolen. For landlords however there is some opportunity for protection, they can carry out tenant checks or tenant screening using a specialist for credit check services. But for the individual whose identity was stolen, there is just one option, you need to take action to protect your data before it is too late!