Credit Report compared side by side

If you ever find yourself a victim of identity fraud then there is one way to protect yourself. This is through your credit report. Fraud is a constant problem in the UK. Not only do consumers need to worry about offline fraud but with the internet it has caused a dramatic increase in online fraud too. In many serious cases of fraud, it has been found that it can take up to 200 hours to repair your identity.

If you continuously check your credit report, it can help you to spot identity theft. You can make a note of any suspicious transactions that have been made. So many fraudsters steal a person’s identity to apply for loans and credit cards for bad credit. This is often carried out by those who cannot get the credit that they need and they steal a person’s identity who has quite a good credit history.

CPP recently commissioned research in order to see how many people regularly check their credit reports. The company also wanted to see how many people had been affected by identity theft.

The Results of the Study

It was found that almost 900,000 people have been affected by identity theft. Around 6% of these were people aged 18-24 who said that their bad credit was a result of their passwords being stolen. Of those affected, 48% of them said that the poor credit rating they had been left with has cost them money. Due to their new poor credit rating, they could no longer benefit from various loans and if they were accepted they had to pay higher interest rates.

The average length of time it took people to repair their rating was 409 days. Not surprisingly this has led to a lot of stress and emotional problems. It can contribute towards depression, cause strain in relationships and also cause sleepless nights.

Only 4% of people said that they regularly check their credit report. Regularly means monthly and the low amount of people who do check their reports this frequently is quite worrying. Over half of those questioned also admitted to never checking their report. Then there was an even more shocking statistic that 4% of people didn’t even know what their credit report was.

A credit report can be vital in detecting identity theft. Therefore the fact that some people do not even know what their credit report is can be quite worrying. If you don’t know what your credit report is then you can get a free copy from one of the three leading credit report agencies in the UK. Experian is the first place that you should look. A report by Experian showed that 61% of those who suffered identity fraud, found out by looking at their credit report.

Overall most people look at their credit reports in a negative way. Most media attention that credit reports have is negative because they can affect your chances of getting the credit that you need. However, they can help to track down identity fraud so it is always worth keeping an eye on your report on a monthly basis.