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Tackling identity fraud

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PS79CI
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PS79CIMost of us have personal information which we need to keep private. Bank statements, credit card details and other correspondence can be very valuable in the wrong hands. 

According to statistics from CIFAS, the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service, reported that the number of identity fraud cases declared to the authorities in the UK continue to rise, with over 80,000 reported in the UK so far this year. All of these findings indicate that UK citizens are not taking enough care of their personal details. Additional findings from the research reinforce this fact:

A quarter of us (25%) are still not taking simple yet key precautions such as shredding bills and
bank statements before putting them in the bin
A third (30%) of UK citizens admit to not even owning a shredder at home
Only 57% of those surveyed verify emails or calls from organisations before responding
46% wouldn’t report a lost driving license or passport straight away
59% do not follow up when mail fails to arrive and just 13% regularly check their credit rating
Encouragingly, 83% of the UK public check for unfamiliar transactions on bills and statements
and 86% have security software on their home computer

Recently, Absolute Gadget reviewed the latest shredder from Fellowes and they challenged us to see how we would cope without it once we had spent time using it.

The shredder works incredible well with not just paper, but plastics. Credit cards can be turned into tiny bits of plastic that are useless to crooks in seconds.

All-in-all, we wouldn’t want to be without our shredder, but identity thieves would certainly wish we didn’t have one.