CIFAS is 20 years old and counting

Posted in 'Personal Finance' by Richard Catlin

19 November 2008

CIFAS – the UK’s fraud prevention service, is celebrating it’s 20th year of operation. It was founded back in 1988 by eight of the largest retail credit providers - after it was realised that the only effective way to combat fraud is to work together.

Enabling lenders and others to share information on suspected fraudulent attempts to obtain credit and embracing new technology which enables new frauds to be reported extremely rapidly, CIFAS now has over 270 members, covering all aspects of financial services. It estimates that it has prevented over £5 billion worth of fraud losses over its lifetime.

The system works by allowing financial organisations to lodge warning flags against personal credit files – which are then visible to all other member organisations. Whenever an application for credit is made, the presence of a fraud warning prevents the applications from passing through automated credit scoring systems and forces a manual review.

Fraud warnings are the only element of credit files that are recorded against an address, rather than against an individual. It’s important to remember that the Rules of CIFAS require that its members never use CIFAS warnings as the sole reason for an application to be declined.

As fraudsters get ever more inventive, so it is becoming increasingly important for consumers to take extra steps to protect themselves.

CIFAS also offers a service called Protective Registration, where for a fee of around £14 a year, an extra layer of security is added to an individual’s credit file that prevents new credit accounts being opened in their name without manual verification that the applicant is genuine.

It’s likely that you could reduce your chances of falling victim to fraud or identity theft with just a few small changes to your lifestyle. Use our free Identity Theft Risk Assessment Service to see where you might be vulnerable, and how you could tackle it.

To see if a CIFAS warning is registered against either your current or previous address, simply check your credit file online with checkmyfile.com. It’s best to choose to base your report on Callcredit data and you’ll be able to check that your own fraud warnings are clear, as well as finding out what your credit rating is like.

Check your report online