Police have warned online shoppers identities are a commodity and should be protected like cash. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
ONLINE criminals can steal identities and issue credit cards for as little as $88 - then start spending.
South Australian police have warned that identities are a commodity and should be protected like cash, The Advertiser reported.
Online shopping activity is peaking in the lead-up to Christmas and police have detected scams involving fake caravan and boat sales and holiday scratchy tickets in the past week.
Identity crime and electronic fraud police who met recently at an international conference in Queensland say credit cards can be bought in batches of 10,000 for 8c each.
The cost of the CVV security number on the back of the cards is $8 each and it costs just $80 for the scammers to change the billing address on the account if they have sufficient identity details.
Those details, the police experts say, are "harvested" online from unsuspecting victims using social-networking sites and other internet sites - and a prime target is children.
Queensland detective Brian Hay said some criminals store personal details of children who don't have credit cards and wait until they turn 18 so their identities can be used to set up bogus credit cards and loans.
The danger, the officer said, is that the children online hold less concern about protecting their details because they don't have accounts that can be plundered by scammers.
South Australian police detective Inspector Greg Hutchins, the Officer In Charge of the Financial Investigation Sections, warned that while the criminals may not be based in the state, it doesn't mean that South Australians are immune from identity theft or scams.
"A criminal can sit in front of a computer anywhere in the world and target someone in Brighton, Salisbury or Norwood ... no one is immune if they don't take measures to protect themselves," Det Insp Hutchins said.
Tips for protecting against identity theft are:
LIMIT personal details online and on smart phones.
RESTRICT access to your social-networking accounts to only those you know.
HAVE a robust password of at least eight characters with letters and numbers.
DO not answer or correspond to unsolicited emails or SMS or phone calls.�
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