Episode 7 Rip Off Britain

We asked you to tell us what's left you feeling ripped off,

and you contacted us in your thousands.

You've told us about the companies you think get it wrong

and the customer service that simply is not up to scratch.

We're all just numbers, aren't we, at the end of the day?

Profit comes before anything else, and that's all that matters.

You've asked us to track down the scammers who stole your money

and investigate the extra charges you say are unfair.

Why can't they all just give it you at the price it should be?

They don't, they just try and charge as much as they can...

And when you've lost out but nobody else is to blame,

you've come to us to stop others falling into the same trap.

When it comes to actual customer service, it's dreadful.

So, whether it's a blatant rip-off or a genuine mistake,

we're here to find out why you're out of pocket

and what you can do about it.

Your stories, your money...

This is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello and welcome to Rip-Off Britain,

where today we're going to be hearing about scams and crimes

that are not just breathtakingly brazen,

but also terrifyingly simple.

And they're all to do with something that's fast becoming a threat that,

really, every single one of us needs to be on our guard against -

-ID fraud.

-As we'll see,

fraudsters sometimes need only the smallest of details about identity

to commit their crimes.

And you may have no idea that they've got hold of your personal

information until it's too late.

That was what happened in what has to be one of the most jaw-dropping

cases we've ever featured on this programme.

And just wait till you hear it. I guarantee that once you have,

you'll be making checks to ensure the same can't happen to you,

which, of course, is what today's programme is all about -

making sure you have everything you need to know to avoid making life

easier for the criminals, so that all of those valuable

bits and pieces of your information can't end up in their hands.

Coming up,

how fraudsters set out to steal not just this man's identity,

but also his home -

and they very nearly got away with it.

It does still shock me,

and I just hope that it doesn't happen to other people,

and other people don't have to go through this.

And behind the scenes with the police team

cracking down on the fraudsters who are making fake ID to order.

You've got hologram features, you've got watermarks,

you've got UV, you've got cards.

So they would be mass-producing these upon request for individuals.

Most of us at some point have probably had an item of post

go missing, and while it's frustrating,

you would hope that something lost in the mail

would have no more serious a consequence

than perhaps just a bit of inconvenience.

Sadly, however, that's not always the case, and there are items that,

well, far from being simply lost,

have somewhere along the line been deliberately stolen,

so that someone else can get their hands on your personal details

and then use them to their advantage.

Well, we've looked into examples of that on this

programme before, of course, not least in our last series,

when we revealed how fraudsters were even attaching fake postboxes

to people's houses in order to snaffle the mail.

Well, the mess that those residents had to untangle was bad enough,

but just wait till you hear about the first-class fraud

that the man we're about to hear from was exposed to

when his details were stolen.

For fraudsters intent on stealing your identity,

there can be few things quite as valuable as your post.

And a scam we featured last year, targeting homeowners in Chorlton

in Greater Manchester, exposed an ingenious way

they might sometimes get hold of it.

I noticed stuck to the wall was this metal postbox

that I'd never seen before,

and it had a crudely painted house number on it.

At that moment, we realised that the letterbox had been put up

to intercept the mail.

In that letterbox, we had a letter from the TSB,

saying I'd opened a new account with them and I had negotiated

an overdraft for £1,000.

These temporary postboxes had been attached to homes

purely so that the crooks responsible could collect letters

relating to accounts or loans that they'd set up fraudulently

after stealing the identities of the real residents.

And though in these cases it was spotted before too much damage

could be done, one way or another, our post and where it's delivered

can be the gateway to our most valuable details,

because if fraudsters can get their hands on our bills

or bank statements, there's no end to the havoc they can cause.

And here, in the leafy suburbs of Stockport in Cheshire,

that's something that Minh To has discovered

after he ended up becoming the victim

of a particularly audacious scam.

And the scene of the crime?

The house where he's lived for nearly 30 years,

bringing up his family, including daughter Fiona.

My dad bought the house, I think, a few years before I was born,

so late '80s, around '88.

We lived there, growing up, throughout our whole childhood,

pretty much, so it's always been the family home,

my dad's always loved it.

It comes with a lot of land,

so he's had various animals on the farm there.

The house is really important to me and my dad.

Minh's house is his pride and joy,

and though his children have now grown up and moved out,

he's never had any intention or desire to go anywhere else himself.

He's always planned to retire here with his animals.

It's a bungalow, and I have 11 acres of land in here.

I have three bedrooms, very comfortable.

It's warm and it's away from the road.

But it's the secluded location of this house,

and more especially where his letterbox used to be located,

which made Minh the target of criminals.

Here is...

It used to be, er, the postbox.

Minh has now moved his postbox away from the location

to a place where it's visible from the front door.

His old one had been completely out of sight,

and though he believed it was secure,

in fact criminals had found a way to fish out some of his post.

And what they did with it is one of the single most shocking scams

that we've ever come across.

Because, terrifyingly, a handful of stolen utility bills

and bank statements was all it took for fraudsters

to try and steal his entire home from under his nose.

And it was only by chance that his daughter Fiona,

an estate agent in a nearby town, uncovered what was going on.

She got the surprise of her life

after seeing her father's much-loved home suddenly appear on the market.

I was in work, and it was a weekend,

and I was looking at properties that were for sale in the area,

and I saw it had come up,

and I knew that he would never try and sell it without telling us,

or for the price that it was on at.

And yet, from what Fiona could tell,

Minh's house was being advertised as being up for sale at an auction,

in just a few days' time.

Confused and extremely concerned, she immediately rang her dad.

I called my dad and I asked him what was going on,

cos I was really shocked,

and he said he didn't know what I was talking about at all,

he didn't understand what was going on.

He was wondering how it had happened,

so we had loads of questions, and then he got quite angry,

cos he just didn't understand how something like this could happen to him.

Knowing he hadn't put his house up for sale,

Minh was, understandably, totally bewildered.

Shocking.

Terrible feeling.

And, er... Panicked, really.

Something going terrible wrong here. Can't figure out... What is it?

Fiona did some more digging,

but she couldn't work out how her dad's property had

come up to be for sale at an auction

without either his knowledge or permission.

At first, I thought maybe the estate agent that had marketed it

hadn't, like, done the correct checks

in regards to ID and everything.

But then I thought, if they have done that,

then we need to make sure that the title deeds are all correct

and everything's fine with the Land Registry.

As Fiona investigated further and made checks with the Land Registry,

things got even worse. She discovered, to her horror,

that somehow her father was no longer the legal owner.

The house had been transferred to a complete stranger's name,

and it was this person,

who, at least on paper, now appeared to own the property,

who had given the permission for the house to be listed

and put up for auction.

The guide price was £300,000,

rather less than the property's true value,

but it's easy to see that a lower price would be likely to gather

a lot of interest at the auction in just a few days' time.

Minh had to act fast -

and called solicitor Paul Citron for help.

-Hey!

-Hello.

Hello, Paul.

I received a telephone call from him, very upset and animated,

to tell me that his house had been stolen.

It took me a few seconds to grasp what he was getting at,

although I have to say that I had never come across something quite

so blatant and outrageous as the theft of identity,

leading to the change of ownership of a house.

It was quite frightening to realise how relatively easy

it was to commit this fraud.

Paul managed to put a stop to the sale

and set about unpicking exactly how this could possibly have happened.

It quickly became clear that the personal information

that had been stolen from Minh's postbox was enough

for criminals to forge the proof of identity that they needed

to carry out their audacious plan.

The way in which this fraud started was with a forged passport,

which showed all your details, your name,

but instead of a photograph of you,

there was a photograph of a completely different gentleman.

It was with a fake passport in Minh's name,

but showing the face of one of the fraudsters instead,

that the process of transferring ownership to the house

to a second fraudster could begin.

He was also able to introduce himself to a firm of solicitors,

producing the forged passport,

and the utility bills to evidence his identity as you.

With no reason to suspect that anything was amiss,

and believing, thanks to that fake ID,

that the request was coming from Minh himself,

the solicitors had agreed to transfer ownership of the property

to the name requested.

And what made this part of the fraud even easier for the criminals

was the fact that, as Minh had paid off his mortgage

on the property some time ago,

there were no banks or building societies involved

to ask any more awkward questions of the fraudsters.

So with what seemed like astonishing ease,

the transfer of deeds from Minh's family home to the criminals

was complete. To cover their tracks,

the fraudsters diverted all mail relating to the transfer elsewhere,

meaning all the time Minh was completely unaware

that there was anything untoward going on.

That person then went to the estate agent's and said,

"I'm the owner of this property now, I've just recently acquired it,

-"and I want to sell it at auction."

-Simple as that.

Simple as that, yeah. Frightening, really.

Had Fiona not spotted the house on the market, quite by fluke,

and if the property had been sold at auction,

the whole mess could've got even more complicated still,

with an unwitting new owner of this house entering the mix,

by which time the fraudsters, of course,

would've made off with the cash from the sale -

and leaving Minh with a very difficult situation to resolve.

It is quite conceivable that a successful bid

would have been made for the property at auction,

and presumably a substantial amount of money paid over

by way of deposit,

and indeed the purchase of the property

by an innocent third party completed.

Fortunately, however, the fraud was stopped dead in its tracks,

and the men behind it were arrested.

Atif Mahmood, on the left,

and Saeed Ghani both admitted conspiracy to defraud.

Ghani was sentenced to seven and a half years

and Mahmood sentenced to two years and nine months behind bars.

Do you want to come down?

Now, though their actions may sound unprecedented, in fact,

the Land Registry has stopped

254 similar fraudulent applications on properties since 2009.

And while the stakes were especially high in Minh's case,

plenty more of us will have had our personal details

targeted in some way.

In fact, in March it was reported that cases of identity fraud

in the UK were at their highest level since records began

13 years ago, with almost 173,000 cases in 2016 alone.

That figure includes online frauds and, as happened here,

cases of people targeted through their post,

a scenario fraud specialist Tony Blake warned about

on this programme last year.

There's been student properties where people's identities

have been stolen -

and again, communal areas where mail is just left around.

Fraudsters are making applications for products,

whether it be an account, or a loan, or something similar,

in someone else's name,

and they're having the mail sent to the genuine person's address.

Now, they need to intercept that mail

before the genuine customer even sees it.

With this type of fraud on the increase,

many police forces across the country now have dedicated teams

to investigate cases.

Detective Chief Inspector Nicky Porter

leads the economic crime team for Greater Manchester Police.

So, some of the basic ways will be about just using an implement

to get inside the box and lift, or scoop the mail out.

Sometimes, if the box hasn't been emptied regularly,

the mail will build up, and if it's busting out of the box,

it's easier for fraudsters to just literally put their hand in

and grab that mail. And then other means would be

just by brute force and damaging the lid or the casing to the box.

So what they're looking for is account numbers -

particularly useful would be credit cards, PIN numbers,

erm, people's name and address, dates of birth.

These are all things that a fraudster can then,

on a future date, use and exploit.

So Nicky has this advice

to make sure it's not your details that the fraudsters

get their hands on next time.

I think, generally speaking,

residents should be very vigilant around

the presentation of the letterbox at their door.

If you've got mail sticking out of the postbox,

then somebody could just come along and grab what might appear

to be bills or personal information.

So it's a good thing to make sure

that you clear that area on a regular basis.

But many of the people who fall victims to a fraud

do so without even realising it,

so Nicky says keeping a close eye on your bank statements

and checking that your personal information is safe

-is always sound advice.

-It is wise to just check your account,

and to go over your statements.

Sometimes it can be just be small amounts that are taken,

and people don't realise they've been defrauded,

or their identity's being used till several months down the line.

So it's always good to check out

and keep on top of your statements and your bills.

It's also really wise to check out anything

that's been sent through around financial agreements

that you're unclear about,

or if you're not sure whether you've actually taken something out,

then you must challenge this, or contact your bank.

Back at home in Stockport,

Minh now keeps a much closer eye on all his personal information,

but his family remain horrified that this fraud could ever

have got so far, and indeed, very nearly succeeded.

You know, it does still shock me,

and I just hope that it doesn't happen to other people

and other people don't have to go through this.

It's still quite unbelievable, as well.

So there's a big element of it where, you know,

if I'll be speaking to my friends about it, I still think,

"I can't believe this has actually happened."

Your identity is perhaps the most precious possession,

and it seems that with just the scantest of details,

criminals can open bank accounts, get loans,

mortgages or credit cards, all in your name,

then, of course, leaving you to sort out the mess.

Well, identity theft

is now the fastest-growing fraud in the country,

and since my own identity was forged last year,

and I feel very vulnerable about that,

I'm afraid I'm not totally convinced

that enough is being done to stop it.

So when I was invited by the ID fraud unit at the UK's

biggest police force, well, to see if they could convince me

that they are beating the fraudsters, as you can guess,

it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

This footage, which we've shown you before, still chills me to the bone.

These fraudsters are walking into my bank, intent on stealing my money.

They have a fake driving licence that has my name and details on it,

but this woman's photograph and that fake ID was all it took

to convince bank staff to give them access to my account,

and subsequently they stole £120,000 of my money.

Well, after this disturbing and, quite frankly,

frustrating incident in my case with the bank,

I have to admit that I'm very, very sceptical

about what security measures are in place generally

to stop these criminals getting away with it.

Because when you're the victim of a crime

and the criminals, as in my case, are still at large,

you can't help wonder what the authorities

are doing to stop all this.

But here at the Metropolitan Police in London,

there's a specialist police department called Amberhill,

and it's this team's job to crack down on criminals producing

not just fake driving licences,

but fake passports, security passes, you name it -

whatever ID is required, criminals will have found a way to forge it.

In charge here is DCI Gary Miles,

surrounded by just a fraction of the fake IDs he's collected

over the last few years.

It scares the hell out of me, to be blunt about it,

the fact that it's so easy just to copy anything, so, I mean,

how big is the industry of people who are making these?

It's huge. As I say, since we've been running in 2009,

I think we've disrupted somewhere in the region of about 40 or 50

factories, as we call them.

And they are factories that they run.

They will get loads of different specialist equipment together

and be generating these documents on a daily basis.

You've got hologram features, you've got watermarks,

you've got UV, you've got cards,

so they would be mass-producing these upon request for individuals.

Scary stuff. Now, according to Gary,

almost every major town in the UK has such a factory,

churning out hundreds of fake documents every single day.

And the fraudsters go to huge lengths to make sure

that the fake documents they're making

look exactly like the real deal.

Intelligence researcher Gary McManus is showing me the contents

of this cupboard, just some of the many tools of the trade

that police have seized from counterfeiters on previous raids.

Typically, we've got an ID card printer here.

When you say ID, like for a driving licence or something like that?

Yes, criminals use a machine like that to print driving licences,

identity cards,

bank cards, construction seals cards,

SIA security industry cards...

-Everything.

-Near everything.

-And what's this one for?

This is, erm...

a piece of machinery which people will use

if they're in the crafting industry

for putting corners on to birthday cards and things like that.

-This is a counterfeit passport.

-Mm-hm.

It's got very straight edges that... There.

-All passports should have round edges.

-Oh, right...

So what they will do is put that in there. That's a corner cutter.

That will just cut the corner into the passport.

That's an embossing machine. Blank cards go in one end,

come through here, they get embossed as they go, turn round here,

so the numbers will be printed on to those cards.

So that could be for...?

Driving licences, National Insurance cards, bank cards.

Any sort of counterfeit document normally needs some sort of stamp on it,

so we've got some home-made stamps there from...

That's an immigration officer's stamp.

That's a consular stamp.

I suppose, actually, with foreign passports,

a lot of foreign documents,

they would have to have a lot of these?

-Yes.

-Wouldn't they?

-In order to verify the document.

And where would you have got all of these?

-Well...

-From an establishment?

-Yes, we've seized these

-from what we call document factories.

-Right.

But in fairness, "factory" is a bit of a misnomer.

It's usually someone's bedroom, in a flat somewhere.

With all this kit to help the fraudsters make their fake IDs

so utterly convincing, it's perhaps no wonder that, on their own,

bank staff might have difficulty spotting what's genuine

and what isn't - and I think that's a real concern.

So, you've been in this department for about six or seven years?

-Yes, I have.

-Have you seen it just grow enormously during that time?

Yes, I personally wouldn't trust anybody's identity document

when I saw it now.

Gary believes that a lot more needs to be done

to train people to spot a fraudulent document.

He says that all too often the emphasis is on verifying

signatures and photographs,

which may mean less importance is placed on checking

whether the actual document itself is genuine.

What people tend to do with an identity document is verify it,

not authenticate it, which they should be doing.

-The people really have to be trained...

-Yes.

-..to identify it,

whether it's authentic not?

Yes, across banks, HR departments, councils. Everywhere, really.

Do you think that's a really lax area?

Yes, there's only so much... It's a difficult area, really.

How much training you give to people,

if that then becomes open knowledge,

then the fraudsters get to know about it, as well.

One of this team's document examiners is DC Jane Wright.

Sometimes you get fraudulent. Sometimes you get counterfeit.

There's a difference between the two.

Counterfeit is completely and absolutely created and made up.

And a fraudulent document is a genuine document,

but it's been... It's been tampered with,

they've changed the details or changed an image, or something.

But Jane can spot a fake a mile off,

as she demonstrates with this passport.

First thing is check the quality of the cover.

The gold blocking... They can't always

get the quality, if it's a counterfeit.

Make sure that all the corners are rounded, instead of square.

Make sure all the paper is aligned

and it's not falling over the edge or not reaching the edge.

The end papers, you have a feel and make sure,

because generally you have a tactile feel to that.

This are all things that you can do with the naked eye

and with just feeling.

Well, I have to say,

I certainly wish the staff at my bank had put those kinds of tips

into practice when presented with a fake driving licence.

Perhaps then they would've been able to stop the fraudsters

in their tracks, as I'm very pleased to say Gary and his team

have managed to do a number of times.

We've stopped hundreds of people

by arresting them and prosecuting them

and putting them in front of the courts.

We've saved £50 or £60 million, erm...

to various different organisations

by them being able to identify people using counterfeit documents

when applying for financial services.

Are you amazed yourself about the scale and the sophistication,

the fact when one scam is closed down, another one,

even more sophisticated, pops its head up?

I'm not amazed, because it's the professionalism.

I think generally the public don't actually understand

the professionalism of these people that are committing these offences.

On occasions, people can think the victim to be stupid,

or the victim to be greedy.

I can categorically say, from what I see from it,

it's neither the victim being stupid nor the victim being greedy,

it is the professionalism of the people

that are committing these offences.

What's your final word of advice, then,

on trying to protect your identity,

or pitfalls maybe that you've witnessed?

Always have a look at, erm, at the accounts that you have,

and try and identify where there's strange behaviour going on.

And as soon as you identify strange behaviour,

make contact with whatever institution that is,

and they then should then be able to assist you through it.

-So act fast, in other words?

-Yes.

Well, I must say, it's very reassuring to see what Gary

and his team are doing to try and combat this ever-growing crime.

But the one thing I've learned from my own very frustrating banking

experience is that you can never be sure that your details,

and your account numbers and your amounts of money

are being kept safe, even within the bank.

So the advice here is be ever-vigilant,

do many checks about your own affairs -

and if you see anything that is even vaguely suspicious, act fast.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain,

are we making it all too easy for the criminals to get hold of

the information they need to steal our identities?

Were I an identity thief,

then this would all be ammunition that I would use to try

and take some credit out in your name.

It's quite eye-opening, actually.

Manchester's Trafford Centre

was this year's venue for our annual pop-up shop.

It was a wonderful opportunity

for us all to be out and about, meeting viewers.

But alongside the fun was the serious business of helping

as many of you as we could.

We have a fairly good track record.

What am I saying? We have a very good track record.

As well as tackling your individual problems,

our experts were out and about in the shopping centre giving advice -

and Andy Webb from the Money Advice Service was keen to find out

how much shoppers knew about staying safe when shopping online.

Do you do online shopping?

-Yeah, quite often...

-You do. And you?

-Yeah, I do it quite often.

-What are you looking for online?

-Price, to be honest.

But are you looking about whether the site is safe?

Is that something that even enters your mind?

That's true, it's never really entered my mind.

The danger is when you buy,

you might be kind of releasing all your credit card

or debit card information,

potentially to scammers, who could then use it to steal your identity,

or take more money from you.

-I've kind of got a few websites here I can show you.

-Yeah?

Have a look at this.

'Most of us know by now that a padlock symbol

'should mean that a site is secure.

'But Andy says there's another important symbol

'to look out for.'

The start of the web address, there, most web addresses are "http".

-Yeah, OK.

-If you're buying online,

look for the S,

cos the S stands for "secure". If it's not there,

for something you're buying, be careful.

Cos it might not be a legitimate site. It could be dodgy.

-So, we can be ripped off?

-Yeah, absolutely, you could be.

So look for things like that. That sounds, erm,

quite simple, doesn't it? Look for the S. Sometimes though,

that S doesn't appear until you're at the checkout.

So just because the S isn't there straightaway,

it doesn't mean avoid it completely,

but when you do go through to click, make sure the S is there.

-Appreciated that.

-Good luck with the shopping.

Thank you very much...

A new face on our experts team this year was Aaron Chohan,

a cyber-crime and fraud solicitor

who also wanted to help shoppers avoid being scammed.

Are you concerned about internet fraud?

-Yes.

-What are your concerns?

Well, recently I had an issue where money had been taken out of

my bank account. I have been refunded,

-but it's made me very wary.

-Well, I'm glad I stopped you,

because Aaron is an expert on this.

-Oh, right!

-So he ought to be able to tell you what you might be able

to do to protect yourselves in future.

-Oh...

-Yeah, the thing you've got to realise, your online behaviour

is really a gateway for all of these criminals to try and get your data,

maybe mimic your identity.

For example, if you get an e-mail and there's a name that comes up

saying it's from a local authority or a council,

you hover over the e-mail name

and it actually reveals a different sender's name behind it.

That's interesting, actually, because I received an e-mail

which I thought was from the Inland Revenue.

They said I had a tax refund online

-and I had to put all my information in.

-That is...

I actually phoned the Inland Revenue, cos I thought,

I don't actually believe this is true.

-They did say...

-It is a scam.

-Yes. Common scam.

-It's an absolute common scam,

playing people, there's this opportunity to get some money,

-you think, that's a bit of a bonus, I'll go and get that.

-Well done, you!

-Absolutely.

But again, it's looking out for the peculiar,

something which doesn't quite make sense.

They're brilliant at copying what an e-mail would look like.

It did look very official, though. I can imagine some people would be

easily fooled into thinking it was a genuine site,

because they do look so original, like the original sites.

All of these things have made you a bit more wary?

-Yes, very much so.

-You did the right thing,

phoning them up and checking it out.

-Do you use social media?

-I do, yes.

Do you put lots of personal information on it?

No, I keep it very, to the bare minimum.

It's true, there's so much of the basic information that's used

-for bank security we put on our social media accounts.

-Yeah.

-You know, mother's maiden name...

-Exactly.

..date of birth, favourite pet or so on.

It's all very accessible, unless your settings are secure.

It sounds like you're ahead of the game compared to many,

which is a great thing to hear.

-JULIA:

-Well, we're going to be hearing more

about the dangers of that in our next report.

But before we leave our pop-up shop,

let's catch up with some of the things you were sounding off about

in our Gripe Corner.

What really annoys me is estate agents charging

really expensive administration costs.

What gets my blood boiling is aggressive sales.

They're calling me at half past eight at night,

they stop me in the street, they don't take no for an answer,

I'm getting junk mail through the post. It makes me furious.

Car insurance. Like, the price of me paying each month

costs more than the car itself. That needs to be sorted, man - Asap.

Yeah.

Now, earlier in the programme we heard about the fraudsters who very

nearly pulled off an audacious con trick, just by stealing a couple

of items of post from their victim.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of that case was just how little

information the crooks needed

for them to get so far with their crimes.

Well, that got us thinking about how many titbits of information

we may all be giving away on a daily basis,

perhaps when we're using social media accounts,

or when we're on our phones.

Simply a name and address here,

a date of birth or maiden name there,

can lead to all sorts of information being used for any manner of frauds.

There's no doubt that the internet and social media

have made the world a smaller place.

Family on the other side of the globe can see photos of loved ones

in seconds and staying up-to-date with employers and friends,

wherever you are, can all happen at the click of a button.

But there's a more sinister side to this information being on display

for millions of people to see,

because the minutiae of your life floating around in cyberspace

can all too easily be pieced together by criminals

out to devastate your life.

Catherine Fotheringham found this out when she had her identity stolen

by fraudsters using information they found online.

And it all started with the delivery of an unexpected package.

I opened the parcel and looked in it, and it was size eight trainers.

Well, no-one in the family has size eight trainers.

It was from a company that I didn't know about, that I don't order from.

So, I rang up the company

to question the delivery -

and they said an account had been opened up in my name.

And I said I hadn't opened up an account,

and I think this is somebody fraudulently using my name.

This set off alarm bells for Catherine,

so she contacted a credit agency to see if her details had been used

in any other recent financial activities.

I found out that at least ten other applications for, erm...

payday loans, store cards, bank accounts,

had all been opened up in my name.

When I rang the bank to find out how they'd set up a bank account

in my name, they said it was set up online

and there's nothing they could do about it.

On the account itself,

it had a £1,000 overdraft facility on it -

and they could've taken that money.

Catherine set about cancelling all of these accounts,

but as she spoke to the various companies' fraud departments,

they kept coming back with the same question -

one that gave her a clue to a place where some of her personal details

could've been found.

A lot of them asked me, was I a company director?

I said yes, I was a company director,

or had I been? I said, "Yes, I am a company director."

All company directors by law

have to be registered with Companies House -

and up until 2015, the Companies House website

published full names, addresses and dates of birth -

personal details that could be accessed

just through a quick internet search.

Exactly the sort of information Catherine believes

that could be used by criminals to apply for loans,

credit and go shopping, all in her name.

It is worrying, it is concerning.

I can't change my name, I can't change my date of birth.

Unless I'm going to move, I can't change my address.

So, it's really like holding back the tide, ensuring that

everything's in place and double-checking everything.

Well, from October 2015, Companies House stopped displaying

the full date of birth on its website, for precisely the reason

that it could potentially be used in identity fraud.

But that was too late for Catherine,

whose personal details had already been used and abused by criminals -

and there was nothing she could do about it.

I changed my company registered premises to a different address,

but the problem is, historically, it's out there.

Anything that gets onto the internet,

there's not much you can do about it.

So, there's historic information on everybody.

But of course, it's not just one website that might display personal

information about us online.

And sometimes we can make it far too easy for the criminals.

There were almost four million cases of online fraud last year,

and experts are warning people to take extra care with all the bits

and pieces of information they may inadvertently give away -

and nowhere is that more true than on social media,

where many of us post personal information

without thinking where it might end up.

Indeed, the fraud prevention service Cifas recently produced

a film to demonstrate the dangers of that.

It set up a test in a cafe which, for the purposes of the experiment,

was offering customers a free coffee

in return for "liking" their shop on Facebook.

It seems harmless enough, but there's a catch.

OK, Carly, are you ready for the information on Damien?

-Yep, I am.

-Mother's maiden name is... BLEEP

He banks with... BLEEP

By liking the cafe's page,

its staff and anyone else who may be looking can glean all sorts

of information about their customer, pulling together other details

that had previously been posted on Facebook.

Yeah, got it.

Damien, aged 26 and a fitness instructor.

How do you know all that?

Ronan goes to UCL? Martin, that went to South Thames College.

-Assistant psychologist at Great Ormond Street?

-How did you know that?!

It's a stunt that very effectively illustrates how easy it is

to get hold of facts that, in the wrong hands,

could be used to help steal someone's identity.

Sandra Peaston from Cifas

believes we're all too relaxed about handing out our information.

We're not suggesting that people are scared to go online,

that they're scared to use social media,

we're just suggesting that they're aware of what they're sharing

and how they're interacting with that environment.

It's like, for example, if you've got a bike,

you shouldn't be scared to use your bike and leave it somewhere.

We just suggest that you'd use a big lock when you do that.

That's something technology expert David McClelland

wholeheartedly agrees with.

He's long believed that many of us risk sleepwalking into having

our identities stolen because of our relaxed approach

to the use of social media accounts.

Social networking is amazing.

It connects people all over the world,

it's great for social life and professional life, as well.

But the amount of information that we share on these social networks

can be putting us at risk,

so it's important we understand the dangers of sharing too much

of ourselves online.

To demonstrate, David is going to see just how much

personal information he can glean from passers-by

in Sevenoaks, in Kent,

with just their first and second names to go on.

How safe do you feel about your online presence?

I think fairly safe.

I've sort of done all the safety precautions.

I'm a teacher, so...

it's quite important that I hide quite a lot of my stuff.

Generally, I feel as if I have the ability

within all of my settings to tighten it up as best I can.

I try to keep it as impersonal as possible.

They all reckon they know what they're doing,

but their confidence rapidly diminishes

once David does a bit of online digging.

Some pictures.

-Mm.

-I'm guessing that might be friends or family just there.

Let's see what else we've got.

So, I can see here where you live.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

-Yeah.

-That would've been me aged...

15, probably?

By going to this social network, I can find out more about you.

Yeah, if it's clear that that's my name, yes.

Oh.

-Oh, my gosh.

-Is that the university you went to, by any chance?

-Yes.

How are you feeling about this, by the way?

Slightly concerned that it's quite THAT obvious.

Hang on a minute,

so what you've posted here are some links to another social network

where I can...watch a video,

which I presume is of you.

In a few minutes,

David has managed to find out information about each of our

unwitting volunteers that he says would be enough

to start creating fake identities.

Were I an identity thief,

then this would all be ammunition that I would use,

with some other bits of information,

to try and take some credit out in your name.

So, David has these tips that you can do right now

to make sure you're not inadvertently leaving yourself

exposed to the fraudsters.

Social networks

are making it easier and easier for you to check

your privacy, to go through a little health check.

There's a few little screens to see if you're sharing

your e-mail addresses and phone numbers, dates of birth.

You can make it so you can change it so no-one else can see that.

You can test, you can make a change to a setting...

-Yeah?

-..and test straightaway

to see if that's giving you the control that you want.

Fascinating. That's really helpful.

No, I'll go and wrap that up a bit better.

HE LAUGHS

-Pleased to hear it.

-Yeah.

-Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Speaking to people today, if I'm honest,

I'm not at all surprised at what we found.

They thought that they were quite locked down,

they had control over their online presence on their social networks.

But having a look, it turns out they weren't.

Everyone we spoke to was leaking a little bit of information

that would be fantastic for an identity thief

to take away and use to piece together that jigsaw,

to build up that jigsaw that would enable them to do

anything, take out credit, take out a phone contract, whatever.

Well, our volunteers will be more cautious from now on.

But Catherine's already being extra careful online.

As she can never be fully sure where the fraudsters got her details from

in the first place,

she's taking extra steps to monitor whether her ID

is still being misused by criminals.

I think it's staying alert,

watching what's going on with all my accounts,

watching where information is stored on my Facebook.

Before, we didn't have the web, so people had kept things close.

Now it goes out there.

I think the main thing is not to put too much information

about yourself out there.

Cos it doesn't go away, it stays.

-GLORIA:

-If you have a story you'd like us to investigate,

then we now have even more ways you can get in touch.

You can join in with the conversation on our Facebook page -

just look for BBC Rip Off Britain.

As well as the most up-to-date news,

you'll also find exclusive behind-the-scenes clips and pictures

from the show.

Or you can log onto our website,

bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain,

where there's tonnes of advice and fact sheets full of tips

on how you can avoid being ripped off.

Or if you'd like to send us an e-mail,

then our address is...

And of course, you can always send a letter to our new address...

Well, I'm pretty sure that, just like us,

you will have been utterly horrified at the story

of how Minh's house was almost stolen away from him,

right underneath his nose,

and all because they got hold of just a few pieces of his mail.

You know, I think we're all going to be making an extra special effort

to protect our post from now on, and I have to say,

the shredder is an essential piece of kit in my house.

-For me, I burn everything.

-Equally staggering, I thought,

was how easy it is to inadvertently leave yourself at risk

from ID theft, through even the simplest activity online.

It really doesn't take much for fraudsters to piece together

bits of your information and then exploit it for their own advantage.

So, please do bear in mind all the tips that we've heard today

on how to stay safe.

I must say, some of the stories today have just been horrifying.

And after my own situation,

although it was terrible to see how much fake ID had been seized

by the police, it was also reassuring at the same time

to see just how much is being done to try and tackle the problem.

Which I hope means that what I experienced

is a lot less likely to happen to somebody else.

And at that point is where we've got to leave it for today.

Thank you so much for your company and from the entire team, bye-bye.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.