What is identity theft?

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United Kingdom. According to APACS, the UK Payments Association, there is over £1.6 million of card fraud on UK plastic every day. Identity theft occurs when thieves use your personal information (home address or driver’s license number) to gain access to money, credit, goods or services in your name. Since your name is used for these activities, companies come to you seeking repayment of the money or goods that were illegally obtained. While legally you do not owe anything, it can often be difficult to prove this and it can take months and even years to get everything straightened out, costing you a huge amount of time and resources. In the meantime, you can be left with no access to credit as credit card companies, banks, utilities (phone, mobile phone, Broadband) and other financial institutions can cut off your credit accounts until your good name is restored. There have even been instances of people being arrested due to other people committing crime whilst using their stolen identity.

How does identity theft happen?

Identity thieves can get access to your personal information in a myriad of different ways. These include:

• Stealing mail
• Copying down or taking pictures of your information in a retail transaction
• Data breaches at companies that have your information
• Stolen wallets or purses
• Documents thrown in the trash by you or a business that has your information (refuse diving)
• Computer viruses
• Phishing
• Intercepting data form insecure networks or sites
• Overhearing or hacking into phone conversations
• Pretexting, meaning use false pretenses to get your personal information from companies that have it (financial institutions, utilities, etc.)
• Changing your address through a change of address form in order to divert billing statements from your home to an address the thief controls

What do thieves do once they steal my identity?

Identity thieves continue to come up with new ways to benefit from your stolen identity. The most common thing an identity thief does is open up a new account in your name. This can be a credit card account, a bank account which they use to write bad checks, a phone or mobile phone account, or a utility account such as gas, electricity or television package / broadband. The thief then racks up charges in your name and never pays them, leaving creditors to come after you. Another common tactic is to take out a loan in your name for something like a car or even a house. Identity thieves also commonly use your identity in dealings with the government. The purpose of this can vary from receiving benefits in your name (such as State benefits, or even a tax refund), to avoiding prosecution by giving police your information when arrested. Of course, when you don’t show for the court date, a warrant is then issued for your arrest! We could go on, but suffice it to say, there are hundreds of ways for an identity thief to benefit from using your personal information.

How can I prevent identity theft?

Signing up for one of our recommended services is the best way. Each service is different and different ones may be best for different people. Some services, such as FraudLock offer what we call “preventive” services, meaning they are great for preventing ID theft before it can happen. Other services, such as Experian Credit Expert and Equifax are what we call “detection” services, which mean that they detect that someone is trying to steal your identity and help you catch it before it harms you too much, but they don’t try to prevent it before it happens.

See “What type of identity theft protection is right for me?” In addition to signing up for one of our recommended services, there are many things you can do to help prevent identity theft:

• Carefully monitor your credit report for any suspicious activity (many of our recommended identity theft services do this)
• Always shred documents containing personal or financial information.
• If you receive preapproved credit offers (some of our recommended services stop these from being mailed to you), make sure you destroy them.
• Keep key identity documents such as your birth certificate and passport in a secure, and preferable locked location.
• Carefully review all monthly financial statements (credit cards, bank accounts) to be sure there is no fraudulent activity. Make sure you know when they are coming so that you can take immediate action if they don’t actually arrive (some of our recommended services with set up reminders to do this for you).
• Never give out personal information over the phone unless you are absolutely sure who you are speaking to.
• Never give out personal information on the Internet unless you are absolutely sure you are on a trustworthy website.
• Do not click links from emails to get to an online account - it may be a fake email directing you to a counterfeit site (phishing). If you think the email is legitimate, type in the web address of your account yourself.

What type of identity theft protection is right for me?

“Preventive” identity theft protection services like FraudLock, are a very strong form of protection. Both place a flag on all of your credit files which requires business who are extending new credit agreements to you need to take additional measures to confirm your identity, usually by calling you to verify that you opened the account and requesting your Personal Password if you have set one. We recommend this type of service for most people who are concerned about identity theft, but it does come with some drawbacks. Mainly, it makes it a bit harder for you to open credit accounts, as you must first wait to be contacted by the new account grantor, which can sometimes take as long as a few days or longer if the grantor can’t connect with you.

For those who want to protection without risking any sort of delay on the new credit application process, a “detection” type service is a great approach. Our Top Recommendation, FraudLock does allow you to have membership without the “preventive” measures if they are not wanted. The “detection” measures involve the Credit Reference Agencies, who will monitor your credit file and will make you aware of any significant changes so that you can check they are legitimate. They also give you regular updates of your credit reports and credit scores (some charge additional rates for a credit score). While detection of something means that your information has already fallen into the wrong hands, it almost always occurs before the situation has become a more serious problem and it is not as difficult to deal with. A “detection” service is good for someone who opens credit accounts often but is not overly concerned with identity theft.

What do I do if I think I am a victim of identity theft?

If you are a member of one of our recommended identity theft services, call your service provider immediately and they will help you handle the situation. Similarly, if you are a member of one of our recommended credit monitoring services, call your service and they will help you take care of the situation. If you have not subscribed to one of our recommended services, you should visit http://www.identitytheft.org.uk which is a site that has been pulled together by a group of relevant public and private sector bodies to provide generic information.

What is Pro-Active Credit File Protection?

FraudLock have joined forces with CIFAS, who are a not for profit fraud prevention service. CIFAS place a flag on your personal credit report with each of the three credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and Callcredit, which requires credit lenders to follow additional identity verification standards before opening a new account in your name. This usually means that they will call you to confirm that you did indeed request that a new account be opened. You are also able to add a personal password to your files as an extra layer of security. The flag remains on your account for 1 year and thus must be re-activated annually if you want to continue to have this protection. Our top recommended provider, FraudLock, will automatically manage this renewal on your behalf to ensure ongoing protection.

Can I protect my entire household with a family plan?

FraudLock are the only current provider offering a discount for protecting more than one member of a household.

Can money lost due to identity theft be recovered?

Since you are not legally responsible for paying any fraudulent debt accumulated by an identity thief, the only money that is likely to be lost would be funds withdrawn from your bank accounts. It is up to your bank or financial institution to restore money that has been stolen from your accounts. Many banks voluntarily offer zero-liability policies, which means that they are effectively promising to replace any stolen funds. Visa and MasterCard also offer zero-liability policies, which extend to debit cards as well as credit cards.

How do the ID theft insurance/guarantees work?

Some identity theft protection services offer a service warranty or guarantee of around £1,000,000. This means that if your identity is stolen while you are a subscriber, the identity theft protection service will spend up to £1,000,000 in order to restore your identity. These guarantees do not cover funds that are stolen from you, only the out of pocket cost of restoring your identity. Identity recovery expenses can include such things as legal fees and, in certain cases, lost wages.

Will an ID theft protection service help me restore my identity if I do become a victim?

The providers listed as having an Identity Theft Recovery Service will advice you on your options and leverage their network of resources in order to help restore your identity. Each service approaches identity recovery and restoration differently, so it is important to research each service to understand what it does and does not cover in the unfortunate case that a subscriber does become a victim.

Will an identity theft protection service hurt my credit score in any way?

No, subscribing to an identity theft protection service will not negatively impact your credit score. When you authorise a lender to check your credit, it is called a “hard pull,” which may cause your credit score to drop slightly. However, you check your own credit, or an identity theft protection service checks your credit report on your behalf, this is known as a “soft pull,” which does not hurt your score.

How does IdentityFraudExpert come up with its reviews?

We thoroughly test and research all the key providers in the category. We order each and every service ourselves and test out every feature available. We contact customer service and cancel and reorder each service to make sure that process works as well. After our initial tests, we continue to use all the services and update our reviews as situations change. We also monitor the providers’ sites for any service changes or special offers. In addition, we research each provider by reading all news and ordering and reading third-party research reports. We only include providers on our site that we believe offer a good value proposition. If there is a provider you know of that is not on our site, you can be fairly certain we did not rate that provider highly enough to include in our comparison. If you think we are missing a quality provider or have any other suggestions or comments, please visit our contact us page.