July 5, 2005

Our worst fears have been brought to the forefront, with the news that the investigative journalists of the Sun newspaper, have uncovered a scam where people are selling the details of British credit card holders for as little as £3 per person.

The journalists were able to buy the a CD that had the details of 1,000 UK credit card holders, after a trip to India, to call centres were the details were being stolen. This has alerted the police in to immediate action, and they have launched an investigation in to the call centre thefts.

The details that the CD held on each person was quite extensive and it will provide your name, address, date of birth, telephone numbers and all the password answers, needed to confirm that you are the account holder and it will also tell any potential identity fraudster the 3 digit security number that is on the back of your credit card, just above the metallic stripe, with all the details being the property of customers of some of Britain’s major banks.

Related Articles

Credit Card Fraud Begins To Fall
Credit Card Fraud Costing Us Dear
Credit Card Identity Fraud

All of this has really come about because of the banks and credit card lenders, need to cut costs, not to save jobs, as many were lost on these shores when they decided to move to places such as India, but the reason was all purely down to maximising profit and was not done to the advantage of the customer.

The man who was selling these details to the journalists, also claimed that his contacts inside India’s call centres could get the details of British customers mortgages, their mobile phone numbers and if you have spent any time in a hospital recently, they could also supply your medical bills, which can all lead to major identity fraud being committed in your name, this is all very worrying for the British credit card holder.

It has been said that this is a quite rare occurrence, but that does not make it any less of a threat to out finances and sounds as if it has only been said to allay any fears that we will obviously have, but let’s hope it’s taken seriously from the credit card issuers and banks and they deal with it now, rather than hoping that it was a one off security breach, that will not happen again now that it is all out in the open.