A Professional Identity Thief

Be in fear of the professional identity thief. He or she works in the shadows and is rarely caught or brought to justice.

As mentioned on other pages, the worst scenario an individual can face is that of a planned and organised assault by a professional identity thief.

Such a person was Stephen Hoyle from Middlesborough, England. At the time of his arrest, he owned 2 Mercedes, 2 companies and 8 houses. As you can see from this BBC Story , he also had bank accounts totalling £390,000.

Having seen a BBC documentary in which he was profiled, it seems that police believed he had targetted over 80 families and had possibly taken up to £1.5million.

The police found that he had maintained very accurate records so that he could maintain his false personas without needing to remember every little detail. In other words, this was his profession.

Being targetted by someone of this nature will probably be a catastrophe for your finances even if you are prepared. Therefore, the best thing that you can do is to try your hardest to deter criminals in advance by being a hard target. When faced with tough targets, a professional identity thief will move on to someone easier. After all, there are millions of easier targets out there: why work hard?

Click here to go back to a page about different types of identity theft scams

For information about identity theft basics