Rachel's story: She didn't feel like shopping any more...

During the sales, Rachel saw a nice coat going for less than half price. What’s more, if she took out a store card she could get another 10 per cent off.

Rachel never got the discount, and she never even got the coat. The shop assistant who was arranging her store card looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t let you have it. I’m afraid your application for credit has been rejected”.

Rachel was flabbergasted. She always paid off her credit cards on time, and thought she was pretty organised with money. She had never been turned down for credit before. Worried and angry, she didn’t feel like shopping any more, and went home.

It was only later that she discovered what had happened. Somebody she didn’t know had applied for half a dozen new credit cards, spent up to the limit on each, and done a runner without paying a penny back. But they’d not used their own name - they’d applied in Rachel’s name and given as the address a flat she had moved out of three months before. Not surprisingly, the card companies thought Rachel had stolen the money and her good credit record had rapidly taken a turn for the worse.

Rachel contacted her bank. She wrote letters. She found out how to apply for copies of her credit references, where the frauds were all too easy to spot. She went to the police. Finally the truth came out. One of the new tenants in her old flat had taken advantage of the stream of junk mail still arriving for Rachel, offering her new credit card accounts. That was all it had taken.

After a great deal of effort everything was sorted out and Rachel got her good reputation back. “You’ve been a victim of identity theft. It’s now a real problem in Britain”, she was told. Since then, Rachel has been extra careful to make sure that information about her life doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Personal details, she’s realised, need protecting.

October 2009