All the criminal needs is a delivery address they can claim the victim has moved to, and they are ready to start making credit card and bank account applications on the victim's behalf. In theory, if the ruse is carried out carefully enough, the victim might never know. And, since impersonation per se is not a crime, if the fraudster kept credit card payments up to date it is technically possible they would not even be liable to prosecution. If the fraud is discovered, the onus is on the party that has suffered a material loss, usually the bank or credit card issuer, to push for prosecution. They are also obliged to notify Cifas, which then posts an alert against the victim's credit file to make sure that all future applications in that name are checked with its legitimate holder.
Banks claim they are bracing themselves for a potential wave of identity hijackers.
He says the level of fraudulent applications dropped by 10 per cent last year, while credit card fraud overall went up by 55 per cent. This, combined with the Cifas figures, could be an indication that Cifas is helping to intercept an increasing number of imposters and cutting the level of reported application fraud. However, Cifas says that while its service is important, 'individual companies need to do verification checks, and there is a trade-off between these and the speed of the production line'. MBNA said this would take two weeks, but it took twice that time. While the amount was in dispute, the bank continued to charge him interest.