27 July 2006
Financial institutions in the UK have responded well to ID theft victim's concerns, CIFAS, the UK's fraud prevention service, has said.
Earlier this year, CIFAS commissioned research among ID theft victims to find their views on they ways that their cases had been handled and how it could be improved.
Victims told CIFAS that they felt staff should be trained in how to deal with ID theft and that they could have received more information on the progress of their cases.
They also said that they felt that they were not offered advice on what steps they could take to clear their names, find support and how it would affect their future credit ratings when applying for loans or credit cards.
The results of the survey were shown to financial providers, and CIFAS said that it was satisfied that they were doing all they could to ease any distress victims may be caused.
"Many organisations already take a pride in demonstrating best practice in this area but others were keen to learn from victims' experiences," said Peter Hurst of CIFAS.
"The final three recommendations were considered either to be already in place, or easily achievable in the short term.
"The difficulties posed by the first two recommendations were also considered to be manageable.
"Where working patterns, absence through sickness and holidays militate against offering an individual case worker to each identity theft victim, there was nonetheless a will to offer consistent treatment and advice."
CIFAS added that it will be drawing up a code of best practice to advise financial companies on how they can draw up standards and systems to deal with ID theft.
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