Please keep an eye on your benefit accounts

wherediditallgo

By now, we've probably all heard of the disgraceful loss by TNT of the two cds containing Child Benefit information on 7.5m families. Please monitor your accounts closely. I suugest the following:

• If the benefit is the only money paid into the account, withdraw any credit balance, so that there's nothing for a crook to take.

• If your benefit payment is due within the next two weeks, arrange for it to be paid into another account temporarily - perhaps a friend/relative will help out. If a payment is due in the next few days, find out if it's actually going to be paid & what alternative arrangements are available. Apparently this has been known about for at least two weeks, so you'll also need to check for unauthorised activity on the account prior to yesterday's news release.

• Speak to your bank, and sort out a new account. Even if the cds are found, there's no guarantee that the cds won't have been copied for the data to be used at a later date.

There is already a thread on MSE about the cds here. The content in this post on MSE is quite useful.