ID fraudsters targeting wealthy Londoners

The "typical" ID fraud victim in the UK is a high-earning professional, aged between 26 and 45 and a homeowner, according to Experian's dramatically titled 'Victims of Fraud Dossier', which is based on data from 10,000 ID fraud cases.

Experian says more than 6000 victims sought help from its "victims of fraud team" during 2007 - a 66% increase on 2006.

But Experian says analysis at a "postal sector level" found a number of so-called "identity fraud enclaves" where people are at a particularly high risk. Residents living in a postal sector that centres on College Gardens in Tooting, south London, were found to be the most at risk and almost fives times more likely than the UK average to become a victim of identity fraud.

Experian says "forwarding address fraud" is now the most commonly perpetrated method, representing 36% of ID fraud. This is where a fraudster redirects the victim’s post to a drop address that he/she then visits to collect the post. "Present address fraud" - previously the most common method - declined to 30%.

However the report also found that a hefty 89% of frauds reported to Experian in the second half of 2007 had not been reported to the police.

Of those that were reported, 64% were still under investigation, while just six per cent resulted in a prosecution. Furthermore, in 29% of the cases that were reported to police, victims believed that they were unlikely to be pursued.

You can see the fraud dossier - which doesn't look as dramatic as it sounds - here.