Someone, somewhere probably knows all about you. Supermarket loyalty schemes, marketing lists, surveys and the use of debit and credit cards all generate records of how and where we spend our money, says Helen Monks in Money Observer. Many websites use cookies to transfer information to your computer’s hard disk, so they can remember who you are and personalise content.
Indeed, we have become “glass consumers”, according to the National Consumer Council: everything we do, and everywhere we go, we leave a trail. It is worried that growing use of personal data for commercial purposes is undermining individual privacy. And if it’s easy for businesses to get hold of so much information, it’s also easy for the determined criminal.
But let’s not get paranoid. Instead, let’s make sure we don’t give away our secrets, particularly our financial secrets. For a few pounds, credit-reference agencies will check the details they hold on you are correct. You can also register with the Direct Marketing Association’s free Mailing Preference Service to remove your name from up to 95% of direct mail lists in the UK, helping you to reduce junk mail and your vulnerability to fraud.
The introduction of chip and pin has been credited with cutting card-fraud losses by 13% in the first half of last year. But they still totalled £219m, says Jessica Bown in The Sunday Times. And internet, phone and mail-order fraud grew by 29%. A survey by Which?, the consumer organisation, found that 60% of cardholders make it easy for fraudsters to rip them off, says Lisa Bachelor in The Observer.
About a quarter use the same pin number for different accounts, and a gullible 21% would give their account number to a caller claiming to be their bank or credit- card firm. Which? estimates fraud costs each cardholder an extra £12 a year through higher bank charges, interest rates and fees.
There are the usual safety tips, such as checking your statements and shredding sensitive documents, along with using a different pin number for different accounts. But you should also use a different password for different accounts. Fraudsters can crack a secret password in no time, especially if they also hold other information about you and your family.
Financial firms are pretty decent when dealing with fraud, says David Prosser in The Independent. For example, Capital One’s TV advertising campaign barely mentions interest rates; instead it concentrates on the free identity-theft (an unusual crime) assistance package that comes with its credit cards. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is definitely not a reason to choose a Capital One card above any other.