Credit card holders beware – fraudsters on the increase in 2007

At this early point in a brand new year, Morgan Stanley have issued a report declaring that millions of British people are susceptible to fraudsters.

The report states there are 5 very common ID theft “sins” and lists them as:

• NOT shredding bank or credit card statements before discarding them. (40% of respondents admit to this, with 59% of the under 30s claiming to do this.)
• Using the same passwords or PIN numbers for both bank AND credit card accounts. (27% of us do this with 31% of the under 30s.)
• Writing down or storing PINs or passwords on PCs or the like.(12% do this.)
• Disclosing and sharing personal data in a public location (11%)
• Sending personal banking data via unencrypted e-mail (5%). A secure site will always display https: on the browser’s address line.

The Marketing Director of the Morgan Stanley Credit Card is Mr Patrick Muir who expresses concern that despite the warnings on ID theft, the majority of people are paying no heed to them and have a misplaced belief that it just cannot happen to them.

He says that their fraud department deal with a number of cases each year and since card holders can often not be aware of unauthorised transactions for several months, then the entire process can become quite drawn out. He strongly encourages customers to take out ID theft insurance to counteract this.

The following conclusions were drawn from the report:

• The under 30 age group are the least likely to spot fraudulent activity on their account with 45% of them not checking statements compared to the 72% of age50+ who DO regularly check their statement.
• Once again it is the younger age group who don’t bother to shred, who share their passwords and PINs and who do give out personal details in public places.
• Geographically, the report indicates that Londoners are among a higher risk category since 15% shared information in public places, 25% say they use the same PINs for ALL their cards, and 9% store passwords on PCs or laptops.

To keep your ID safe for the coming year Morgan Stanley encourages all its customers NOT to commit any of the 5 sins listed above in addition to thoroughly checking ALL bank and credit card statements as they arrive and trying not to allow your card to leave your sight when purchasing items e.g. in a restaurant.

They conclude that insurance policies can be a great help in detecting fraud early on, however, like any other advice –always read the small print.