Keeping Your Identity Safe To Avoid Wrongful Indictments

Keeping Your Identity Safe To Avoid Wrongful Indictments

By:


Being accused of doing something that you have not done is not a pleasant experience. You could be accused of a serious crime that you know that you did not commit or failing to act in a certain way in a civil dispute. Whatever the matter, the undeserved attention needs a huge effort to defend if you are to prove your innocence. This often has a much more serious effect on the wellbeing of innocent parties than it does on crooks or sharp businessmen.

Preventing any crime must be a lot better than trying to sort matters afterwards. If you can protect yourself in any way from the risk of finding yourself at the wrong end of unfair accusations, then this is effort well spent. Usually this means just being good and leading a normal sensible lifestyle. However, one of the biggest risks to an individual these days is not to get mugged walking down the street and have their wallet stolen, but being attacked in a different way and having their identity stolen.

Identity theft if one of the biggest and most valuable crimes being committed today and appears to be growing each year. Stealing a person's identity allows the criminals to steal money from a person's bank account or obtain money or goods on credit in that person's name. The scale of the crime is huge, worth many billions in losses each year, and does get a lot of attention from the regulators.

It is possible to use an account or credit cards issued by a bank that will protect you against identity fraud. If you lose money from you bank account due to fraudulent identity theft you will probably be reimbursed by the bank. Although there is an accompanying upheaval and there will be other problems dealing with this, it is at least some comfort getting your money back. However, consider the situation where the identity fraudster steals the identity of a victim and uses a false payment card to remove the contents of a victim's bank account and then pay it into another unsuspecting persons account. The fraudster then transfers the money using another stolen identity of the intermediary to another account they have set up, perhaps in another jurisdiction abroad.

What unfortunately happens in such a case in practice is that the police will have difficulty tracing the money beyond the intermediary, and in some circumstances will accuse the innocent buffer of being an accessory at the very least to the wider crime. So you may find yourself in the position where you are unable to explain why large sums of money have suddenly been paid into your account and then paid out again. It happens, and many innocent victims are accused of being part off such a crime.

A strong defence is a must in this sort of situation, to demonstrate to the authorities that their participation was unwilling. An added problem may be if the crook has made some contact with the innocent victim. Perhaps they bought something small from the victim through a local "small ad". Fraudsters will often target victims in this way to start building up details of name, address etc. The next stage might be to rummage through the victim's rubbish bins in the dead of night to find discarded documents so that they will eventually obtain enough information that will allow them to steal their identity. The police might see this contact, however innocent on the part of the victim, as collusion. An additional layer of confusion is added, helping the fraudster to make his or her escape and making hard for innocent victims to defend their position.

The battle is half won if you are aware of the problem. Taking care of your identity is just as important for individuals as it is for companies. It is s wise move to invest in a shredder. You should never throw away documents that have your name, address and other details on. Bank statements are kept safely by most people, but they often discard the accompanying correspondence or sheet with zero charges which might also show their personal details. All personal documents should be filed securely or destroyed - not simply crumpled into a ball and discarded.

Internet fraudsters use identity fraud as an important tool. Phishing for personal details has become well known and most people are aware of this now, many employ reasonably sophisticated software to prevent intrusion into a home computer and this level of protection should extend to all aspects of information that is personal to you.

About the Author:
Mark Jenner is a forensic accountant specialising in criminal defence. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, a Certified Fraud Examiner and has a Masters Degree in Fraud Management. He advises companies on anti money laundering matters, fraud investigation and how best to protect themselves from fraud.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


Tags: ,

|

Loading...
Related....
Videos...

Recent Business Articles

Comments

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search for it!

Loading

Site Navigation:

Copyright 2005-2011 ArticleSnatch, LLC - All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Service.