Case Study
Cassandra Taylor, an accountant from north London, knows what it’s like to be a victim of identity theft. Five years ago her credit card was cloned, and someone went on a wild spending spree pretending to be her.
“I used my card in a petrol station in Wembley on a Tuesday. The following Monday I went to use the credit card and there was no money in my account,” says Cassandra, now 37.
“Somebody had been shopping with my card all over Wembley on the Friday and the Saturday, in four or five different shops. I was overdrawn by about £500, and the grand total they spent was about £900. They mostly bought clothes.”
The incident happened before there was widespread use of CHIP and PIN, which have been instrumental in the battle against identity theft when it comes to credit cards. So all someone had to do was swipe Cassandra’s credit card, fake her signature, and walk off with the goods.

Getting the Money Back
First of all, Cassandra cancelled her credit card, and made plans to get a new one issued with a new PIN.“At first I was just mad, I was just angry. And when I first went to the bank to try and find out why I had no money in my account, they said, ‘Well, you spent it all,’” Cassandra recalls.
“I told them that I did not, and they said that I must have, as it was my card. It took me about 45 minutes of moaning for them to actually tell me where the money had gone.”
The bank presented her with a list of all the transactions, and made her mark all the ones she did not make. Then she had to go to the police and fill in a credit fraud form, and supply the police with a copy of all the transactions that were not hers, and tell them where they were made.
“Once I filled in all the forms and sent them back, they credited my account the next day. I assumed the police took it from there and investigated the rest. I don’t know if they ever caught the person