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- Personal information such as your date of birth, address, mother's maiden name and passwords are now as valuable as money. This could be enough information for a fraudster to open bank accounts, apply for credit cards, loans and much more
- A bin raiding survey commissioned by Fellowes for National Identity Fraud Prevention Week showed that an alarming 97% of household waste contained at least one or more items which could assist fraudsters in stealing an identity
- Even more worryingly, the survey also revealed that almost half of all households threw away everything a potential fraudster would need to steal a persons identity
- Current address (or present address fraud) accounted for almost half of all identity fraud cases reported to Experian in the second half of 2006
- It takes 467 days to discover that you are a victim of identity fraud, according to Experian
- The last official estimate puts the cost of identity fraud at £1.7 billion, according to figures published by the Home Office in February 2006
- Businesses are being just as careless as households with sensitive information, with 79% of businesses making no effort to destroy sensitive material that is thrown away or being prepared for recycling
- Incredibly, companies are not just risking their own identities but also those of their customers and employees. 40% of businesses risk their clients identities by throwing away information on their customers which includes home addresses, phone numbers and photocopies of passports - all of which can be used by a criminal to steal a persons identity (survey commissioned by Fellowes)
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