I’ve done an interview on ID Fraud for GM-TV. This is to go in a reporter’s package and I have no doubt they’ll use the animated one of me talking about how ID Fraud works. What probably won’t be mentioned is my quote, “there’s a growing ID fraud protection industry out there, trying to scare us into paying for protection products that actually very few will need.” When told there’d been a survey on the dangers of junk mail for ID fraud, my first question was “was it by a shredder company or an ID fraud protection company?”; in this case it was the latter.
This isn’t to say ID fraud isn’t an issue. It is, but it’s by no means the most dominant type of card fraud, in fact it’s one of the smaller ones. Yet as it’s nice and frightening it’s a good one to sell us protection products for. Capital One’s Alistair McGowan adverts boosted the profile of ID fraud… why? To sell a credit card. We should be duly wary of ID fraud, but not unnecessarily panicked. Just try getting that message out there though when there’s an industry worth millions growing on the back of selling us fear.
