ID fraud "easy and economical" for thieves

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ID fraud "easy and economical" for thieves

Thu 12th Jun 2008

The external affairs director at Equifax has stated that identity fraud is an "easy and economical" way for criminals to steal money.

Neil Munroe suggested that the ease of stealing a person's credit details, coupled with the difficulty in prosecuting such crimes, could account for the rise in ID fraud.

"It probably presents fraudsters with the classic economies of scale type of argument; it gives them a very quick, low cost method of stealing money from people, as opposed to some of the other types of activity that they may have previously got involved," he said.

Mr Munroe added that the widespread use of the internet for banking, shopping and other financial transactions has given fraudsters access to a large amount of personal information.

Last month, Experien reported a 66 per cent increase in the number of fraud cases they dealt with from the previous year.

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