Fresh fraud worries as crooks target bank accounts and lonely hearts

What can people do to prevent being victims of ID fraud?

1. Always shred or destroy documents that contain personal information before throwing them away.

2. Never respond to cold phone calls or e-mails asking for account details, PINs, passwords or personal information.

3. Don’t give too much away on networking websites. For example, pets’ names or children’s names could be used as passwords.

4. Register to vote at your current address. If you don’t, thieves could use your previous address details to open new credit accounts, and run up debts in your name.

5. Monitor your post regularly so you know when to expect important documents — and when to act if they don’t arrive.

6. Redirect your mail via the Post Office if you move house.

7. Always use secure, unique passwords for as many online accounts as possible, and ideally all of them. At the very least have a unique password for each type of service provider such as financial services, retail services and email.

8. Don’t store account names and passwords on your smartphone, either in email, as a note, or to ‘autocomplete’ when you open a website or app.  It will be a goldmine for fraudsters if your device is lost or stolen.

9. Read all bank and card statements regularly to check for suspicious transactions.

10. Check your credit report, because it lists your credit accounts and what you owe, so you can spot applications and spending that are nothing to do with you.