Account takeover

There are two types of fraud within the identity theft category, application fraud and account takeover.

Application fraud occurs when criminals use stolen or fake documents to open an account in someone else's name. Criminals may try to steal documents such as utility bills and bank statements to build up useful personal information. Alternatively, they may create counterfeit documents.

Account take-over involves a criminal trying to take over another person's account, first by gathering information about the intended victim, then contacting their bank or credit issuer - masquerading as the genuine cardholder - asking for mail to be redirected to a new address. The criminal then reports the card lost and asks for a replacement to be sent. The replacement card is then used fraudulently.