Caroline Coats was in good spirits as she arrived in Birmingh a m t o d o s o m e Christmas shopping. The journey from her home in Cheltenham had been quick, she had parked easily and was getting money out of her bank. That was when things went badly wrong.

The cashier told her there wa s a p r o b l e m w i t h h e r account and called the manager. The manager called the police and in less than an hour the quality consultant had been arrested and locked in a police cell, the unwitting victim of internet fraud after posting her curriculum vitae on a jobs website.

“I had been waiting in the bank for about 20 minutes when I saw four policemen come in. They came over to me and said: ‘We are going to read you your rights and you will have to come to the police station with us.’ I looked behind me, thinking they were talking to someone else. I was handcuffed and locked in a dirty cell. They took my keys and went to my house, collecting every bit of paper and all my computers.

It turned out that the discrepancies in Coats’s bank account had arisen because she had accepted a job with a fake German firm called GMI Auto after sending her CV to Onqjobs, an internet recruitment site.

Identity fraud through online job applications is the subject of a special investigation by Scotland Yard. Even the most basic details, such as date of birth and middle name on a CV can be used by fraudsters to access bank accounts or set up new ones, say the police.

“With increasing numbers of online job advertising boards and people often submitting very detailed personal information, there is increased opportunity for fraudsters,” said a Scotland Yard spokesman. “We know that some criminals are collecting personal data and then selling it on for use in frauds,” she added.

In this economic downturn, as thousands of people are flooding into the job market every week, there are even more opportunities for criminals to access information.

None of this was known by Coats at the time. The employment board, Onqjobs, was run by a reputable agency and the man who called himself Peter Harley and purported to work for GMI Auto seemed plausible. He said the company didn’t have a UK office and wanted someone to collect money from small retail customers who found it inconvenient to pay invoices in another country.

The so-called company had a website, a telephone number and even asked for references, though Coats didn’t get round to sending them. Over the first three days payments of £14,000 arrived in her bank account which she duly forwarded to the company. She ended up losing £14,000 of her own savings through the scam.

With the benefit of hindsight, Coats knows she was naïve and far too trusting, but she was not the only one to be conned. The fraudsters were sending money from bank accounts belonging to other people whose personal details they had found on the internet.

A spokesman for Onqjobs said it had been forced to close the internet board after being targeted by the fraudsters. “We informed the police but they said it was being done by gangs overseas and they didn’t have the resources to tackle it,” he said.

People can be too trusting, especially when they are desperate to find work. An experiment by iProfile, the company that hosts secure online CVs, found that jobseekers were too ready to divulge intimate details about their lives.

With the support of the Metropolitan Police, it planted a job ad for a fictional company last month. A quick name search for the company - Denis Atlas, an anagram of steal an ad - would have found an internet page explaining that it was a fake. Despite this, 107 CVs were submitted of which 61 included a date of birth, despite this no longer being a requirement under age-discrimination laws. All but nine gave a full address and 20 put others at risk by providing names, addresses and phone numbers of referees. One applicant even included passport and National Insurance details.

The true extent of identity fraud is hidden because the victims usually feel ashamed and don’t want people to know they have fallen into a trap, said Coats. She is launching a “self help” website this weekend - Cyberfraud.org.uk - which she hopes will encourage victims to share information and help persuade internet firms and providers to take more action to combat cyber fraud.

Coats tried to track down the fraudsters when she found their website was still active. But this time it showed a smiley face and the words Weiter, Weiter - we’re far away.

How to protect yourself

ONLINE CROOKS will try to trick you into handing over your personal details by, for example, sending fake e-mails with links to fraudulent websites. They want to tap your bank account and use your credit cards. You can take steps to protect yourself against this kind of ‘phishing’.

Block unwanted spam e-mail - this will also block most phishing e-mails.

Choose strong passwords, using a mix of several words, letters, numbers and punctuation. Use different passwords for different sites to make it harder for identity thieves.

Be careful about the information you give away about yourself online - for example, on blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook.

Remember that there’s no delete button on the internet. If you publish something, even if you delete it later, you have no control over how it is stored, copied or archived.

Source: Getsafeonline.org.uk

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