Shit. Someone has stolen paperwork from my bin

[Wilhelminawonka]

Bin day today. I had a clear out of old paperwork last week, all ripped up and put in a bin bag with a load of old crap - kids toys, envelopes, etc etc.
Since then our regular kitchen rubbish has been put on top and is pretty stinky.

Last night someone took the stinky bags out and placed them in my recycle bin, took out the clear out bin bags and spread the contents over the street. I found half a bank statement left. They definitely got a load of personal information.

What should i do other than inform the bank?

Get a shredder.

Cancel any card relating to that account maybe? The bank will advise you best on what you need to do.
Buy a shredder.

Deserve that i guess. Shredder is on todays shopping list obviously now.
Now that the horse has bolted any ideas what i should do other than let that bank know. I've got no idea what they might have apart from that

What else was in the bin? Can you think methodically through - bank accounts, bills, mobile phone accounts etc. What security is on each account? What can somebody do with the data that was in there? Have you got telephone passwords set up?

How very odd. How would someone know to raid your bin at this particular time,especially if the paperwork was buried under normal household waste? Could it have been your husband or family member looking for something?

That's what has confused me too. Had to tell my ex as the water bill is still in his name and he just laughed (in a friendly way) and said his credit record is so rubbish good luck to them getting anything in his name

I guess what i want to know is what could they use it for? Assuming the worst they could have name, address, bank details, kids names (some of the kids school pictures had their names on), school details, possibly home insurance company, water and elec.
I had done a big clear out so pretty much anything could have been included.

Bugger

There are three main UK credit reference agencies - Experian, Equifax, and Transunion/Callcredit. All of them offer services to help you monitor your credit record. You'll want to take some steps to be able to know if someone fraudulent gets credit in your name.

I think the main fraud possibilities are:

Taking your money.

Using your details to take out credit.

Using them to get other documentation, such as a false passport.

There's probably more though. Crooks never cease coming up with schemes to get rich illegally.

They can become "you". This has the potential to ruin your life. Sorry.

Your credit rating will be absolutely destroyed. You wouldn't even be able to get a mobile phone contract.

I'm confused how they knew to empty your bin, has this happened before to you? To anyone else on the street?

And why would you put bank statements in the household waste bin!?

This has the potential to cause some serious problems for you OP

Do you have an Experian account? Now might be the time to get set up with them (like this morning) and possibly immediately after, inform them that this has happened. Also the bank.

As Confusedfornow says, this has the potential to be a bit of a shitstorm, but I don't think for a moment that you can't stop it from going any further than this. Also call the bank. They might have useful advice.

It's Experian that will be able to help most though. I love them.

Would old bank statements, and ripped ones, really be any use? Surely any company looking at them for identity will wonder what's gone on.

And if it's just the name, address, etc, that's public information - and you give your bank account number out to people so even that's not private

I often tear up old statements that are long out of date, and assume they'd be fine, as partial statements are no good for identity verification, and names and addresses are easier to find via other means.

What could they do with the bits and pieces of info?.....The way to make money if you’ve been in prison for fraud and don’t want to return to your old life is to go on the fraud conference circuit. I once heard a brilliant guy explain in detail how organised fraudsters are. They have networks including IT people who build databases and gradually amass all your identity data.

So in this case they have your name and bank details. They’ve possible already got eg date of birth and email from somewhere else (quite likely some passwords from any of the many high profile data breaches over the years) etc etc. They can match all these snippets and eventually end up with most of your details.

They could eg now have a reasonable go at hacking say an online utility account. This lets them then maybe download the bills which are awfully useful when proving identity and maybe applying for loans etc

This is why not recycling passwords etc matters. Change passwords for anything online if you haven’t already and keep a close eye on all online transactions.

This is why not recycling passwords etc matters. Change passwords for anything online if you haven’t already and keep a close eye on all online transactions.

And where offered, use two-factor authentication. Usually an SMS code to your phone, or an authenticator app locked to the site. Certainly for anything financial. If your bank doesn't offer it (are there any now ?) change banks.

Talk to the credit reference agencies (www.experian.co.uk/consumer/identity/what-to-do-if-victim.html). Talk to these people: www.cifas.org.uk/

May come to nothing. With multi-factor authentication and stuff like that, it's harder to get as much from the stolen data as it once was. However, you don't want to be the one that's the exception.

You also need to change your passwords on everything, and it'd be a good idea to open a new gmail account to link your other accounts back to. If nothing goes awry, you can keep any old email accounts for personal use, etc.

As for how they knew - they didn't. They just chance a couple of streets on bin out times...sometimes hit pay dirt (instead of just dirt)

I was going to suggest CIFAS. Please don't panic. You can sort this out. But for goodness sake shred all important documents in future (I know you know this now)

Have raised an online report with police, a fraud alert report with one of the credit agencies and am talking to the banks today.
Am normally so careful about these things so am pretty annoyed by the whole thing.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I've followed all the recommended steps so hopefully it will come to nothing. If you see lots of Wilhelminawonkas running around spending money please let me know!

You can pay for a CIFAS marker. It will appear on all you credit files for one year but make it that you (and anyone pretending to be you!) has to jump through a lot of hoops for credit. Cost around £20 last time I looked at it about five years ago.

Monitor your credit files as above and inform your bank(s). It is a pain but you may even want to close those accounts to totally new numbers.

Now breathe, even if you had done everything right if someone wants to target you for fraud they will. There are mechanisms in place to deal with it provided you do your part now and let all financial institutions know.