Cases of identity fraud have skyrocketed during the economic downturn, with the number of victims of identity theft increasing by a third since the start of the year, according to the fraud prevention service CIFAS.

The past nine months have seen 59,000 recorded cases of impersonation by criminals seeking cash, loans, credit and goods this year. This means the UK has had more instances of identity fraud this year than any other country in Europe.

Account takeover, whereby a criminal hacks into an existing account rather than setting up a new one, have more than tripled in the last two years. More than half of these instances involved credit card accounts. The increase in online shopping and customer carelessness are both thought to be behind the rise. A quarter of takeovers affected bank accounts, while the number of mobile-phone accounts hijacked increased from 899 to 2,022.

Identity theft hotspots included London and towns along the M1 and M4 motorways. Cases in South East London totalled 2,680 so far this year. High numbers were also reported in Birmingham with 2,111 cases.

CIFAS Chief Executive Peter Hurst said: “Fraud is an insidious crime. Not only does it affect consumers and businesses financially, but its impact in terms of reputation, trust and time are unquantifiable.

“Not only is fraud prevention a shared responsibility but it must also become a shared duty across both private and public sectors.”

CIFAS advise consumers to protect themselves against identity theft by familiarising themselves with their postal bill dates, keeping passwords secure and checking websites begin with ‘https’ before entering sensitive information.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 9:49 am and is filed under Banking, Credit Cards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.