Who by what

Jim Gee (+44 (0)20 7429 4100, jim.gee@mhllp.co.uk) is Director of Counter Fraud Services, MacIntyre Hudson LLP and Chair of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies, University of Portsmouth.

Fraud is a pernicious problem that affects us socially, financially and personally, writes Jim Gee of MacIntyre Hudson LLP. Globally, it costs in the order of UK£2.7 trillion - as much as the total global expenditure on healthcare provision. [1] However, this global figure should not obscure its real, individual human cost. On an individual level, fraud can have a catastrophic effect on the health and wealth of those targeted. [2] One type that can have a particularly nasty impact is identity fraud. It is also probably the type of fraud most commonly experienced by us as citizens - a great many of us either have been a victim of credit card cloning or copying ourselves, or know someone who has. It is a problem that doesn’t always receive the publicity it deserves but now, especially, demands our attention, following the Coalition Government’s abandonment of the ID card project.