FRAUDSTERS USE MAIL SENT TO DEAD

A person lives on after death when their identity is assumed by some who is very much alive. ID fraud is now said to be the UK’s fastest-growing crime, aided and abetted by junk mail. MARK ROY, chief executive of Sevenoaks-based data management company The REaD Group PLC, says better data hygiene can reduce the risk.
It’s a sad statistic: On any given day, about 1,575 people die in the UK, according to ONS figures.
If this reminder of our own mortality wasn’t sobering enough, this same 1,575 deceased will cumulatively receive over 126,000 pieces of unsolicited mail in the 12 months following their deaths.

The result? Undue distress to grieving family members and friends as well as adverse environmental impacts at a time when we’re all striving to be more eco friendly around our homes and offices. If this ‘letterbox lament’ was not terrible enough, the junk mail tide sweeping through Kent each year – totaling some 87.8 million items – is rising. Much of it contains valuable personal information such as name, address, account details and date of birth and is increasingly being intercepted by identity fraudsters.

According to CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service, Impersonation of the Dead (IOD) is Britain’s fastest-growing identity crime, with upwards of 70,000 families likely to experience the pain of discovering their deceased loved one has become a victim of IOD fraud this year alone.
To lose someone close to us is upsetting enough, but to see their identity stolen by criminals is perhaps the ultimate indignity.

While the Ministry of Justice recently ignored Information Commissioner Richard Thomas’s calls for tougher sentencing laws for perpetrators of data fraud and identity theft in favour of unenforceable two-year jail terms, I believe it is time for Kent residents to join together to help stop this upsetting and insidious crime wave. After all, home shouldn’t be where the heartbreak is.

For all mail-producing organisations (businesses, charities, clubs and community groups), regularly cleaning databases of deceased name and address information, gone-aways (people who have moved house) and mail preference service registrants are essential first steps.
Benefits of these data hygiene ‘best practices’ are threefold: first, cutting overall direct mail volumes (and thus decreasing the propensity for post and the personal information it contains falling into the wrong hands); second, maximising brand loyalty and return on investment; and third, ensuring that companies, in particular, don’t fall foul of the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPUT).

Fellow Kent business owners note: Given that only 42 per cent of UK companies have data quality strategies in place, there’s considerable room for improvement in this regard.
For householders wanting to take control of the amount of junk mail they’re receiving, my advice is:
1. Register with a junk mail control service such as www.itsmypost.com or www.mpsonline.org.uk;
2. Remember to register your deceased family members and friends with www.thebereavementregister.org.uk to prevent junk mail being sent after their death;
3. Display a ‘No Junk Mail Flyers’ sticker or sign on your letterbox to deter being inundated with leaflets delivered door-to-door;
4. Tear up or, preferably, shred the name and address panel on junk mail items before recycling or composting the contents so that your personal information cannot be intercepted by ID fraudsters.

In this way we can all help halt the amount of unwanted junk mail flooding into our community as well as protect our personal data and the environment at the same time.
Surely a case of win-win for everyone, if ever there was one.