It is almost inevitable in the modern world that someone will manage to get hold of at least part of your identity.  It happened to me this week.

I went downstairs first thing this morning to see what snail-mail had been delivered, only to find an urgent letter from my bank.  It seems that someone has managed to get hold of my bank card details and used them to spend around 4-500 pounds of my money.  It would have been more, but something tipped the bank off that there was something wrong and the put a stop on my card.

I am happy that the bank managed to catch this behaviour, and prevented another 500 pound being spent.  I can’t help but wonder, though, whether we are all a little complacent about our details.  I’ve always taken time to destroy paperwork that could hold vital information for use by an identity thief, but it seems that is not enough.  Just using your debit or credit card in the wrong place is enough to leave you open to fraud – a quick skim of your card details is all it takes…

It’s easy to be wise after the event, but now may be a good time to fall back on using good old cash for a while.