Identity theft occurs when a fraudster uses your personal information to open or access accounts in your name.

Application fraud happens when stolen or fake identification documents are used to open an account, usually a credit card account, in your name. The fraudster may then use up the credit facility and the bank may then pursue you for payment.

Account takeover occurs when fraudsters use your personal information to pose as you and convince your bank to:

• Issue them with card(s) on your account(s), which they then use to withdraw funds; and/or
• Give them access to your account via online banking, permitting them to steal all the money in your account

Fraudsters use many methods to acquire the information required for them to commit these two types of fraud:

• ‘Dumpster diving’ or ‘bin raiding’ to get hold of banking related documents, which have not been shredded or burnt.
• Combing through your social media pages to find personal information such as birth date, address, name of family members, etc.
• ‘Phishing’ where the fraudsters will send email purporting to be from reputable entities, asking you to click on a link that leads you to a webpage requesting for you to enter information such as your bank account details, birth date, address, etc, that they may add together to steal your identity.

To protect yourself from identity theft:

• Store and dispose of information about your accounts such as correspondences from us to you, account statements and card transaction receipts by shredding and/or burning them.
• If you use social networking sites, display as little personal data on your page as possible.
• Inform us immediately if you change your address so that we always send your statements and any correspondence to your current address, preventing it from being intercepted by any third party.
• If you receive an email claiming to be from any entity which you engage with (whether your bank, your insurance company or similar), asking you to provide personal information, call the entity to check if the email was sent by them. Never request confirmation via email – the fraudster may be intercepting emails.