How big is yours?

Gadfium

billbennett wrote: »

Surely perfect for a bout of ID theft, knowing people's balances and who their accounts are with?

Highly unlikely, I would have thought. If I told you that I had, for example, a balance of £23,500 with AJ Bell, I don't think that you could do much with it.
However, there is a good point about some people's desire to share copious amounts of their personal information online. Take Facebook...a few minutes scouring of someone's profile might happily net you their parents' names, possibly their mother's maiden name, their birthdate, children's names and pet's names. Set up a fake profile and send them a friend request and you have even more information (it's amazing how many people will "friend" any and all requests). With that little lot you would be well on the way to cracking someone's identity. Throw in a phishing attack and a SIM swap and you have access to their accounts:



Listen to how this fraudster accessed someone's account using this very information:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06w53bh

I know someone that was hit by this attack over Christmas. His first knowledge of it was when his mobile stopped working on Christmas day. When he checked his accounts, he found that he was £8K lighter.
:eek:

enthusiasticsaver

Not keen on giving exact figures so will just say between£25-£50k as I am relatively new to investing. I am not including pension and that is just a s and s isa with Cavendish/Fidelity. It is about 2-3% down according to Fidelity but hopefully the monthly drip feeding will improve the situation over time when we come out of this slump.

Pincher

The family tradition has always been to dress down, because the bandits have spies everywhere, and they will kidnap the eldest son, cut his little finger off, or an ear, and demand ransom.


They didn't have the internet, one hundred years ago, but nothing changes.