Identity fraudsters swamp capital

AN explosion in identity fraud has hit one in five Londoners, a survey found. The capital has rates more than double the rest of the country. Experts said the most serious cases, where entire identities are cloned, had jumped six-fold in four years.

The cost of all identity-related frauds, including spending on stolen credit cards, is thought to be close to £2bn.

Security firm Friedland hired researchers TNS to question 1,238 people and it found that 8% had been victims. However, in London the figure rose to 20%.

In the most common variant of the crime, gangs use stolen credit card or bank account details to run up quick debts before the transactions are noticed and the accounts blocked.

Sometimes card details are stolen when customers pay by plastic in restaurants or at petrol stations.

More sophisticated crimes involve creating entire false identities, either stolen from a victim - living or dead - or invented. Then fraudsters open bank accounts and credit cards under the assumed names and take out hire-purchase agreements for cars or other expensive items which they can sell on.

The big victims, banks and insurers, are forced to claw back their losses from law-abiding customers.

Increasingly, burglars search homes for passports and birth certificates to sell to gangs who will use them to construct fake identities.

Fraudsters may use the names of recently deceased people announced in death notices in the hope that the bereaved relatives will be too distracted to notice. Fraud prevention service CIFAS is writing to undertakers asking them to limit the personal details divulged in notices.

The Government's ID cards, due to be introduced in 2007, will carry biometric details - probably iris scans - electronically coded on microchips. Tony Blair said last month that ID cards 'will help clamp down on the use of false identities'.

Crime prevention expert Richard Taylor, a former burglar turned church minister, said: 'The impact of identity fraud can be crippling and it can take a lot of time, money and effort before things can return to normal.

'What may take even longer to subside, though, are the emotional effects; how would you feel if someone else was masquerading as you and assuming your persona?'

In 2001, the Government put the cost of identity fraud at £1.3bn. It is now thought to be £2bn.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy says last year 100,000 identities were faked for fraud: 43,000 were stolen and 57,000 invented.

I was stung twice in the same year

WHEN Sharon Wyness looked at her credit card statement she expected to see a balance of zero. As the card had not yet been delivered, she could not have spent anything. Instead, the figure of £8,013 jumped off the page. She says it was the start of a year-long nightmare.

The card had been stolen from the communal area in her block of flats and used to buy jewellery. It took months for Ms Wyness, 38, from east London, to sort out and then, last month, another statement revealed more than £700 had been spent in Europe since she cut up the card.

She said: 'I just couldn't believe it had happened again. I've never been the victim of fraud before. It was extremely stressful.'