Released on = March 13, 2006, 8:36 am

Press Release Author = www.checkmyfile.com

Industry = Consumer Services

Press Release Summary = A top identity theft expert will outline how the UK
government has overhyped the extent of identity crime in Britain. He will also urge
the credit industry not to exploit consumer fear of the crime to increase their
profits, at the credit industry\'s annual conference this week.

Press Release Body = A leading UK identity theft expert will use the credit
industry's annual conference, this week, to show that the government has massively
over-hyped public fear of the extent of identity fraud to sell its Identity Cards
Bill.
He will also warn the credit industry not to join the bandwagon by selling
over-priced prevention products to over-anxious consumers, and to help combat the
crime by supporting victims more readily.
Barry Stamp, Joint Managing Director of checkmyfile.com, will present to leading
credit industry figures next Wednesday at the Institute of Credit Management
National Conference.
He will show how the government's estimated figure of £1.72bn worth of losses to the
UK economy, caused by identity fraud, has been massively over-inflated. In
particular, these include the costs of security checks for routine government
functions and losses that reasonably cannot be included within the general
understanding of identity fraud. This has whipped up public awareness and in doing
so is likely to obtain wider public support for the introduction of identity cards.
"The largest single component of the government's £1.72bn estimate is £504.8m worth
of losses relating to plastic card fraud, taken from the figures reported in April
2005 by APACS. Closer examination of the APACS figures show that losses from
identity fraud account for just over 7% of overall card fraud, so the true losses
are only £36.9m. This example is one of many that clearly illustrates how the
government has used a creative approach to the definition of what is and is not
included within identity theft losses," says Stamp.
"Going on to include the £62.8m cost of the measures to counter identity fraud when
processing passport applications, and another £34.8m for things like unpaid fines
where the offender doesn't turn up at court are further examples of how the
definition has been stretched".
"In reality, identity fraud is a fast growing crime, but losses in the UK are
probably running closer to £150m at the moment".
Stamp warns: "While the risk is real, and consumers need to increase their
awareness, there really is no excuse for the government to strike fear of falling
victim to identity theft into consumers for political advantage. If the credit
industry exploits that fear to promote over-priced identity theft protection
products to replace waning income streams from payment protection insurance, then
that would be totally unacceptable."
"If the problem is as large as it is claimed to be, then I would very much like to
know why Police resources have not been strengthened to combat the crime. Of the
many hundreds of cases of identity theft that checkmyfile.com has reported to the
Police, not one has been pursued to court action."
"Any consideration of the effectiveness of identity cards should also bear in mind
the state of some of our existing national databases." says Stamp. "In the UK, our
government just isn't very good at collecting personal data or maintaining it, so
what reasonable person might assume that the National Identity Register might be any
different? In the UK we don't even have a central point of reference to check
whether cards or any other identification documents are lost or stolen, as exists in
other countries, nor have I seen any plans to build one."
Stamp, author of 'Identity Theft, Prevention and Victim Assistance', and whose
company checkmyfile.com provides consumers with access to a wide range of databases,
and supplies identity restoration services to a leading insurance company, will
implore credit managers who attend the ICM National Conference to follow the lead of
some lenders who offer free identity theft prevention advice and to work together to
combat the crime.

Philip King, the newly appointed Director General of the ICM, fully supports such an
industry initiative. He said: 'Credit managers working together have shown in the
past that losses from criminal actions, such as mortgage fraud, can be prevented by
sharing intelligence. Identity theft presents a very similar challenge to our
industry and we now need to focus on addressing the issue professionally".

Under the theme of 'Reasons to be careful.', the ICM National Conference and
Exhibition 2006 will be overseen by the Chairman of the ICM, Brenda Linger FICM.
Speakers from HSBC, Crown Agents, Hewlett-Packard, Co-pilot and Blue Prism will join
guest speaker Chris Moon MBE, author of 'One Step Beyond' and one of the few
westerners to have survived kidnap by the Khmer Rouge.

The conference is being held next Wednesday, 15 March 2006 at the Heritage Motor
Centre, Gaydon, near Warwick. To book or for more details go to www.icm.org.uk or
contact Sheila Simmons on 01780 722907.

Ends.

Note to editors:
Launched in 2000, checkmyfile.com is the UK's first Internet based credit reference
agency, aimed firmly at serving consumers. checkmyfile.com is fully independent and
was the first in the UK to provide consumers with online access to their credit
files, to offer consumers the ability to check their own credit score for free and
to give plain English explanations of how credit scoring works. With almost 1.2m
registered customers and visited by over 20,000 unique new visitors every day,
checkmyfile.com is ranked within the World's top websites.
The Institute of Credit Management: www.icm.org.uk

The Institute of Credit Management represents credit professionals in both the
consumer and trade credit industries. A centre of expertise for all matters relating
to credit management, it has 8,700 members across the UK.





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