Nick Mothershaw, UK&I Director of Identity and Fraud at Experian, comments:
âFraudsters are widening their net and we are seeing a growing number of cases involving older members of society. Older individuals in this category often have a good credit rating and have lived at the same address for a long time. Individuals need to be careful of websites and emails asking for personal information, such as confirmation of their date of birth. This information is then used by criminals to apply for new financial products.â
Ten tips from Experian are included in their latest report:
1. Always shred or destroy documents that contain personal information before throwing them away.
2. Never respond to cold phone calls or emails asking for account details, PINs, passwords or personal information.
3. Donât give too much away on networking websites. For example, petsâ names or childrenâs names could be used as passwords.
4. Register to vote at your current address. If you donât, thieves could use your previous address details to open new credit accounts, and run up debts in your name.
5. Monitor your post regularly so you know when to expect important documents â and when to act if they donât arrive.
6. Redirect your mail via the Post Office if you move house.
7. Always use secure, unique passwords for as many online accounts as possible, and ideally all of them. At the very least have a unique password for each type of service provider such as financial services, retail services and email.
8. Donât store account names and passwords on your smartphone, either in email, as a note, or to âautocompleteâ when you open a website or app. It will be a goldmine for fraudsters if your device is lost or stolen.
9. Read all bank and card statements regularly to check for suspicious transactions.
10. Check your credit report, because it lists your credit accounts and what you owe, so you can spot applications and spending that are nothing to do with you.
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Sources: www.experian.co.uk (Published report 2015/09/28)
