UK FRAUD VICTIM AFTER COUNCIL LAPTOP THEFT EADT - Fraud victim after council laptop theft

Fraud victim after council laptop theft

SECURITY fears over a missing laptop containing private banking details of more than 1,300 council workers were heightened last night after it emerged one of them had become a victim of fraud.

Although it is unclear whether the incident is connected with the theft of a laptop from the home of a senior officer from St Edmundsbury Borough Council, the matter is being investigated by the victim's bank and both the council and the police have been notified.

The laptop, which contained unencrypted bank and national insurance details of 1,380 people connected with the council, was stolen from the female worker's house in September.

The theft happened just weeks before Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs was forced to admit two discs containing personal details of 25 million people in the UK had gone missing.

So far the St Edmundsbury laptop has not been recovered and nobody has been arrested.

Suffolk police is working with another police force outside East Anglia in its bid to track down the thieves.

Yesterday it emerged one of those whose details were on the laptop had fallen victim to a fraudulent transaction.

The victim, a former council worker, looked at his bank statement on Saturday morning and discovered an unusual transaction had taken place. There was a record of 44p being put into his account by “Australian Cancer” and 45p taken out by the same supposed organisation, based in Sydney, Australia, on November 8.

The man, who did not wish to be identified, raised the matter with his bank and was told fraudsters often tested accounts in this way, to see whether a small amount would be noticed before withdrawing much larger sums.

The former council worker said: “Initially I got worried. The first I thought about was the laptop scare. I would describe that as the most likely thing at the moment.

“The bank came back to me straight away with a new card number and they said this is how it starts. Nobody else has reported anything so I could just be the first.”

Last night the council issued a reminder to all those affected to be vigilant when checking their bank statements carefully and report anything suspicious.

A spokeswoman for the council said: “We have been contacted by one person who thinks their account may have been targeted.

“There could be many reasons to explain this, but we have logged the details they gave us. We have not received any other reports from anyone who was affected by the theft.

“Following the theft, we took immediate action to minimise any risk and informed everyone who had been affected about the incident. We also passed on guidance about identity fraud and how to protect against it and registered all those affected with the CIFAS Protective Registration scheme to give an added level of security.”

Suffolk police has asked the victim's bank to investigate the incident first and, if necessary, the case could then be transferred over to the police's counter fraud experts.