Phishing and personal details
Discussion
What’s the best course of action if your name, address and DOB have been leaked or a phishing site has the information?
my name, address and DOB with no other info has been entered into a dodgy site that looked real…annoyingly I filled out the info while I was being distracted when I was talking to friends and not fully paying attention.
I’ve set up the free trial with Experian and locked my credit file, but I was wondering if it was worth paying for the CIFAS to apply a marker for for up to two years. However, there seems to be quite a few people online that have had issues with CIFAS markers.
Pragmatically thinking, the information provided is no different to how quickly I could get details of most major and minor celebrities/sports personalities etc.
my name, address and DOB with no other info has been entered into a dodgy site that looked real…annoyingly I filled out the info while I was being distracted when I was talking to friends and not fully paying attention.
I’ve set up the free trial with Experian and locked my credit file, but I was wondering if it was worth paying for the CIFAS to apply a marker for for up to two years. However, there seems to be quite a few people online that have had issues with CIFAS markers.
Pragmatically thinking, the information provided is no different to how quickly I could get details of most major and minor celebrities/sports personalities etc.
CIFAS can be problematic. Personally I’d be cautious about using it as you seem to have discovered.
Realistically, the information will probably be passed on to/sold to scammers who will use the information for social engineering scams - for example they may call you pretending to be from your bank and say you need to move your money to a safe account as “scammers” are about to siphon the money off. Obviously this is a scam when I put it like this, but in practice it can be quite convincing, especially when the tactics of causing panic and applying time pressure etc are used.
My best advice is not to answer unknown numbers (let them leave a voicemail, then Google the number and often you’ll get a result from a website like whocalledme which allows users to post reports against scam phone numbers).
Similarly, be suspicious of emails. Don’t click links in emails claiming to be from eg your bank, your credit card company, the council, Steve from down the road who owes you money, or Nigerian princes who wish to share their lottery winnings with you… B-)
You’ll be ok. Keep an eye on that credit report.
Ooh, lastly, there are three credit agencies - Equifax, Call Credit (I think) and Experian. There are good, free apps or websites for each - Credit Karma and Clearscore are two apps I use, and the Money Saving Expert credit club is good, too.
/Al
Realistically, the information will probably be passed on to/sold to scammers who will use the information for social engineering scams - for example they may call you pretending to be from your bank and say you need to move your money to a safe account as “scammers” are about to siphon the money off. Obviously this is a scam when I put it like this, but in practice it can be quite convincing, especially when the tactics of causing panic and applying time pressure etc are used.
My best advice is not to answer unknown numbers (let them leave a voicemail, then Google the number and often you’ll get a result from a website like whocalledme which allows users to post reports against scam phone numbers).
Similarly, be suspicious of emails. Don’t click links in emails claiming to be from eg your bank, your credit card company, the council, Steve from down the road who owes you money, or Nigerian princes who wish to share their lottery winnings with you… B-)
You’ll be ok. Keep an eye on that credit report.
Ooh, lastly, there are three credit agencies - Equifax, Call Credit (I think) and Experian. There are good, free apps or websites for each - Credit Karma and Clearscore are two apps I use, and the Money Saving Expert credit club is good, too.
/Al
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