Identity Theft Crimes

Identity theft crimes costs millions of pounds a year to the UK economy alone, and accounts for a huge percentage of the world’s criminal activity. Identity theft crime is a very wide category and includes many different types of unlawful activities that can have a range of devastating effects on their victims.

Credit Identity Theft

This is occurs when someone steals your identity in order to obtain credit, goods or services in your name and thieves have a number of methods such as:

Obtaining your existing credit card or bank account details in order to steal your funds and run up debts.

Applying for new accounts and credit to run up debts and charges in your name.

Obtaining goods or services using your name and personal details to avoid the charges.

Character Identity Theft

This is when someone steals your key identity information such as your passport, drivers licenses or Social Security/National Insurance numbers, in order to mask their own identity for a number of reasons, such as:

To deflect law enforcement when carrying out criminal activity (warrants, arrests and traffic violations will be issued in your name and not theirs)

To provide a legitimate name when applying for jobs or benefits (especially if they are an illegal immigrant or have a criminal record).

To fraudulently apply for medical insurance or assistance.

To provide a legitimate name to fraudulently apply for residential leases.

It is important that you take steps to protect your identity against thieves, as it can be difficult and costly to resolve identity theft cases.

Read more on Identity theft crimes.