Talk to Fellowes about personal identity fraud and you could win an Arcadia group voucher worth £200 NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

As part of National Identity Fraud Protection Month, Fellowes have asked us to talk to Mumsnetters about personal identity fraud protection.

Here's what Fellowes have to say: "Identity Theft is becoming an increasing threat to the whole family. It only takes one piece of personal information for a fraudster to build a bigger picture of you and use an identity to commit crime. And it’s not just hackers and cyber criminals targeting British households with scams requesting paper-based information sent through the post still a prevalent issue. The effects of personal identity fraud can be devastating: from racking up credit in someone’s name, financial loss to time taken to resolve the situation".

So, do you do anything to protect your personal information? Maybe you keep all your documents in a safe? Or shred them as soon as you've finished with them?

More recently, it has become even more important to protect yourself online too. Have you ever been sent 'phishing' emails? Do you try not to reveal too much personal information on social media?

Have you or anyone you know ever had any experiences with personal identity fraud?

Everyone who adds their comments on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer can win a £200 Arcadia group voucher. Eight runners-up will also receive a Fellowes 63Cb Cross-Cut shredder worth £135.

Please note your comments may be included on Fellowes' social media channels (including @STOP_IDFRAUDUK), and possibly elsewhere, so please only post if you're comfortable with this.

If you've been affected by personal identity fraud and are interested in being a case study for use in the media please add your details here. If you sign up, your details may be passed onto Fellowes for them to contact you. Please only sign up if you're happy for us to do this.

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw,

MNHQ

So, do you do anything to protect your personal information? Maybe you keep all your documents in a safe? Or shred them as soon as you've finished with them?

No shredder, but I tear up any personal information into multiple small pieces and only recycle anything without any identity on it.

Have you ever been sent 'phishing' emails?

Occasionally. I have a low threshold for deleting and marking as junk.

Do you try not to reveal too much personal information on social media?
Yes, very little. No address, location, number, date of birth..

I haven't but a friend of mine the other day had this happen to them.

I am very careful, I have facebook set to maximum and I shred EVERYTHING. I am guilty of not having all paperwork in order though

It happened to me once about 10 years ago. I think someone cloned my card when I bought lunch in a cafe although I'm not entirely sure! Anyway someone went on a jolly in Italy courtesy of our joint account ;-(. I became naturally suspicious of everyone I knew initially as I'm very careful about things like this - unlike DH who tends to throw away envelopes etc...without shredding the identifying bits! Anyway since then I've been even more vigilant and cautious. Everything is shredded and more often than not composted :-).

If you don't have a shredder you could always get a small rodent to help out with the shredding. If our shredder isn't working I usually sit with a pair of scissors and do it by hand (paranoid or what?).

I actually think that shredders are the type of service that libraries should offer but I guess you'd get some annoying person deciding to shred twenty years or so of documents.....

Years ago we had somebody take out store cards in our name from presumably stolen post. We called in the Police in order to gain credibility w/ the credit agencies involved and clear ourselves of any involvement.

I have had my card skimmed and am now circumspect about only using ATM's inside banks. I never let my card out of my sight. They took £4000 out of my account but it was refunded by my bank instantly because there sales of IPhones/Blackberries/Ipods had been recorded in Darlington, Reading, Sheffield and Slough all within the same fifteen minutes at POS transactions-impossible for it to have been me. I do not live anywhere near these places.

We shred or burn everything and have made sure our children know never to throw away intact personal information in household waste. We destroy those letters from banks etc offering us free credit cards too in case somebody gets hold of them.

We have to keep all financial/household bills for seven years anyway as DH is self employed and it is all kept securely- the thought of it being stolen and the resulting accounts chaos makes my hair go virtual reality grey.

I have no google profile in my RL name as I have a different working name and all my financial/banking/admin activities are in my non professional name. I do not FB (an invitation to burglaries when you go on holiday w/ the chain effect of FB 'friends'). They are not linked anywhere either.

My friend (computer superbrain) showed me how to hack into FB/Twitter. It took her a few minutes and a child of five could do it. So I will never use these sites. I am amazed at the personal stuff people put on there- it is not safe or secure.

I never tick the marketing box and am registered with TPS. I never confirm my details w/ anybody who calls me either regardless of whether it is w/ a service or firm I use. I tell them they must know who I am because they called me.

I clear my laptop of cookies regularly so my card details are not stored. I never ever use a phone to purchase anything. The technology to protect your phone contents is not adequate if it is stolen or 'overheard' by scammers. I will not use online banking either due to the same friend showing me how easy it is to hack into accounts.

BTW my stepdaughter stupidly used a work computer to check on some personal stuff and a week later had £1200 lifted from her account. The banks advice - NEVER use work PCs to access anything personal. Never assume the cache has been cleared.

I think we're all pretty vulnerable given recent revelations on how people have access to our online activity. Makes me wonder who could get into my bank account.

I did once fall foul of a phishing scam really stupid. I bought something on eBay and then the "seller" emailed a slightly different email address for me to pay via Paypal. Fortunately Paypal refunded me but I was just gullible.

I have had a credit card company ring me up and want details of my account on the phone and get a bit shirty when I refused to give them - it was genuinely them.

Also had the AA ring up with an offer I wanted to accept but they wanted my credit card details on the phone and wouldn't offer it by post. Hate it when legit companies ask people to take risks that might then encourage them to do the same with rogues.

I had my email hacked 12 years ago and felt really upset - violated even. We now shred everything and try not to supply DOB on line

I shred documents and always dispose of old cards gradually so the whole thing couldn't be retrieved from the bin. Most phishing e-mails go to spam but I have had the odd realistic one get through. I always go to the site using my saved link though rather than an e-mail to be safe.

I am rubbish I'm terrible at protecting my identity but have a such a rubbish credit rating no one would want it!

i get a lot of phishng scams through e mail, i block them all and report them as phishing scams, most r from yahoo users, hmrc, and barclays bank,it wrecks my nerves as i dont know how they have found me, be careful of kids using your internet as i recently minded a friends teenage son and he was able to get games online through my account and apple without permission and i havent clue how he done it, i never give out my pin, and i change my passwords on websites regularly, i think i need to check my bank account more often though as i seldom get paper statements and i dont do it on line often enough, i hate this hackers, even facebooks mark zuckerberg had his account hacked not long ago so what hope is there?

I have had ,y card c,oned a couple of times. First time bank rang me as transactions were being made at the same time in America and Germany! So no transactions went through. 2nd time I noticed lots of pay as you go online transactions for various mobile companies so rang the bank and was refunded within 24 hours.
When using Internet I use my shortened version of my name and always alter my date of birth by a digit. I never click on links in emails for banks/PayPal etc and never give people ringing me personal info, I will always ring bank on number I have.

If there is ANY chance of someone using your computer make sure you turn off autofill

I was quite lax about the whole thing and used to bin my bills etc without shredding- just ripping into a few pieces.

Mistake! Ended up with about 4 catalogue companies contacting me about unsettled debts.

The fraud dept never actually told me if they'd found out who it was. I would quite like to know!

Youhaveagoodpoint

You definitely live up to your MN name. That was one of the ways my stepd got caught out when using a work computer. Thank you for reminding everybody about the dangers of Autofill.

I was affected by personal identity fraud. A high school friend used all my details after leaving school with her numerous dealings with the police. She had got caught up in an unsavoury lifestyle and on my finding out I had hundreds of incidences logged against me with the police.
She was a good friend through school so knew lots of my personal details , same eye , hair colour etc.
The first I knew about it was when I applied for a job working with children. They contacted me and I had to go to the police station and be interviewed so they could remove the links to my name. I even had to have my fingerprints taken.
Luckily it didn't stop me getting the job but it was a big shock to think someone could so easily do that to you.

I know I don't do enough to protect myself from personal identity fraud. I think I still have a bit of that 'it won't happen to me' or 'if it does, it will be fixable' type mindset, which I know isn't true.
I do try to keep any documents secure and destroy them properly etc, but I know my email isn't secure.
I find my life is complicated enough with different usernames and passwords, that there's not much more I can cope with. I keep locking myself out of my online banking because I can't keep all the passwords in my head.

I don't know anyone's who has been a victim of identity fraud and I am quite complacent with personal documents but this is probably a reminder to be more mindful of how I dispose of personal documents. I am quite online savvy though and don't easily give out personal information.

I hadn't really used my credit card much in the last couple of years, but when I noticed a lot of payments made on it from two different sites (Amazon USA & Amazon France) over 2-3 days. There was over £200 of payments made - the first I knew of it was an email from Amazon UK flagging up the issue so I contacted my crest card provider and managed to sort out the issues.

I think my husband is more concerned about identity theft - wants paperwork, including envelopes with our details shredded/ripped up, he won't use financial sites wirelessly - always plugs the internet cable into the laptop etc.

I do get a lot of phishing scams via email, but they're easy to spot so I flag them up & usually report them.

I don't put too much information on Facebook - certainly don't 'check in' anywhere - I'd rather people don't know my whereabouts, especially if I'm not home!

I am very careful and shred anything with personal details on. I have had my ebay account hijacked before and it was an unpleasant experience.

Have been a victim of identify fraud. Capital One sent a 'please-sign-up-for-a-credit-card' letter to my old address 2 years after I'd moved house. The new homeowner then filled on my date of birth incorrectly, signed as my signature, added himself as an additional cardholder, then proceeded to use the card in his name.

Capital One failed to notice that I was on the electoral register at another address and that my DOB was wrong.

I really really loathe unsolicited credit card application forms with my details pre-printed, for the above reason.

Ironically I was on holiday (in England, in a caravan ) when I got a phone call from my CC company. They asked me if I had booked a hotel recently using my AMEX card. I said no (wished I was in a hotel). Turned out that my card number had been used over the phone by someone literally a few days beforehand and the CCC had picked up on it. Funny thing was, I'd only ever used that card once before several months prior and for double the amount of money, but they'd not phoned to check that out! I find that strange.

I shred everything. I'm completely anal about that. I'm also very security conscious when using my cards in readers/cash points.

I recognise phishing emails and just delete and if it's from ebay/paypal etc, I never click on the links, but sign in independently as if it's a legitimate email, it'll be on my account anyway.

My Uncle lost £5k from his account due to fraud. He got it back but it was a nightmare!

Oh yes! recently the school sent out data protection forms with our personal details on to be updated or corrected. My name, address and both phone numbers, Dd's fathers name, Grandma's name and phone, friends name, address, phone numbers, Dd's DOB, her medical stuff!!! docs name, health visitors name, the medical centres details.

I didn't get mine. I got the letter it should have been attached to, but not the form...so who has it? the school are embarrassed, but they don't know! another mum got someone elses form and they got hers! there names don't even start with the same letter. I find this utterly disgusting!!

We are very security conscious when it comes to disposing of personal and banking documents. Luckily we have woodburners and a wood fired boiler, so dispose of all sensitive information in those. My MIL brings her banking and sensitive documents to us as well for burning.

We had a call from our bank asking if we had spent several hundred pounds on camping equipment, as that seemed to be out of our usual pattern of spending. We hadn't, and the fraud was eventually traced back to a credit card transaction we'd made for meals at a pub in Alice Springs, Australia! We don't seem to have had any further consequences from that incident, but it is a concern.

Seperately, had an incident with my online accounts - I was in my email account and an email disappeared before my eyes. Turns out someone had hacked my account and was using that access to change password for all other accounts. They had got into my ebay and were using it to sell an item. Ebay were unconcerned, implying that I had posted the listing, until I insisted I had never sold on ebay, I did not live in the location that the item would be shipped from, and did not have the same IP address. They took the listing down and I changed my passwords immediately.

I shred documents with personal information once not needed, and I'm careful reviewing emails/clicking links.

As I use internet and social media every day for pleasure and work I have good understanding how important it is to keep your personal details safe.
Identity fraud, especially online one is becoming a huge problem.
I had situation that someone tried to be me and claim my competition winning prize... most people wouldn't think much about it but it was in fact a identity fraud just on a small scale...
I wish teachers could see this as a problem and educate our kids in this matter a bit more...