identity theft

mkfruitcake

hello all
i think i have been conned tonight the more i think about what happened tonight.

how much can a criminal get away with with your name, address and date of birth. no doubt lots but i am now not sure what to do... can i be proactive and prevent anything from happening?

4743hudsonj

mkfruitcake wrote: »

hello all
i think i have been conned tonight the more i think about what happened tonight.

how much can a criminal get away with with your name, address and date of birth. no doubt lots but i am now not sure what to do... can i be proactive and prevent anything from happening?

they can do anything if theyre good enough

a name and DOB will lead to a birth certificate which with an adress and some research can lead to other documents, which will lead to more. until finally they have enough info to do anything they want


how exactly do you think you have been conned?

4743hudsonj

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yYFP4C39to

diff situation but shows how easy it is

and if they know were you live, whos to say they wont be rummaging for a last few clues in your bins

make sure you shred all info about yourself inc name and addresses on ALL mail with a shredder or those multi blade scissors. and throw the shread away in separate bins to minimise threat

i do all this just to be safe and not sorry!

mkfruitcake

Well I gave out my name, address and date of birth on a competition thing which looked genuine, however after I thought about it, the man, the situation and generally I think he was out to get my details - and others around me. What can they do with these details? I live in a town different to the one I was in when this happened.

4743hudsonj

mkfruitcake wrote: »

Well I gave out my name, address and date of birth on a competition thing which looked genuine, however after I thought about it, the man, the situation and generally I think he was out to get my details - and others around me. What can they do with these details? I live in a town different to the one I was in when this happened.

well there was a story i heard of where all one group of con artists needed was name address and dob to get hold of birth ceritificates which led them onto their parent, they then went bin rummaging at the parents and marks house, found a tax letter or something and applid for all sorts of documentaion that then meant they were able to apply for cards loans eetc and i think they even got as far as being able to convince a lock smith or whatever they would be called to let them into the marks house when they were out

which isnt good at all...


im not trying to scare you though

this is very rare

and takes someone with real know how to do


so i would just rest easy

and be a bit more wary with details in the future

and shred all documents you throw out

(ps if you watch that video it explains an awful lot of how it works)

As for what you can actively do about this situation, maybe look the company up in the yellow pages? or if they had a stall ask the council who they are?