Thieves are increasingly preferring the ease and convenience of ID theft to more risky home burglaries, it has been suggested.
Perpetrating ID fraud in order to seize control of credit card and other details is "easy and economical" for thieves, Equifax claimed today.
According to the firm, many criminals are turning to the tech-based credit card fraud as a soft option, because it takes far less effort and bears far less risk than other crimes such as breaking into a house. This point of view is backed up by figures from credit firm Experian, which reported a 66 per cent increase in fraud case numbers from 2006 to 2007.
Statistics from CIFAS, a firm which investigates credit card and other fraud, also show that case numbers have increased still further in 2008 - with a ten per cent year-on-year rise recorded for January-March. In particular, facility takeover (which sees a fraudster impersonating his or her victim in order to gain control of account details) was found to be gaining in popularity, registering a 146 per cent rise.
Neil Munroe, external affairs director at Equifax, commented: "It takes a lot more activity and risk to break into somebody’s house and steal than probably to break into a bank: whereby you can send somebody an email and convince them to give you their bank account details so you can go into the accounts as them."
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