Pharming: Criminals redirect your details from a genuine web site. When you key your details or password into the genuine website of a business or company, the fraudsters retain this information for their own use.

Dumpster Diving: You should be careful what you put in your bin or your recycling bin. Identity thieves are not afraid to get their hands dirty looking through your bin for any piece of information which might be useful to them. Ideally, they hope to find old bank statements, credit card information, or debit card receipts…anything which contains your personal details.

Skimming: Thieves attach a number skimming device to a card reader, either at an ATM or at a checkout in a shop. The device records the card number in order to reuse these details fraudulently at a later date.

Shoulder Surfing: Fraudsters hang about near ATMs and try to see you typing in your PIN, or they will stay near cash desks in stores to target people applying for store cards. The form you fill in contains a lot of information which would be useful to a criminal.

Hacking: Using sophisticated software, criminals manage to infiltrate computer systems belonging to businesses. They do this in the hope of gaining access to credit/debit card details of the hundreds of thousands of customers with whom businesses deal. In 2004, a shoe shop chain in USA revealed that hackers had stolen data from 1.4 million credit and debit card transactions at 108 shops across the US. The breach also included account details from 96,000 sales where customers had paid by cheque.

Deceased Fraud: This is the fastest growing identity theft crime in Britain. If certain details about a deceased person are known, a criminal can use them to open fraudulent accounts in the name of the deceased person.