Angela Edwards, Co-Founder & Director of Circle2success was invited to host this Cybercrime in the Property Market Online event with The TM Group and tm:tv. With an expert panel to die for the conversation was interesting and topical. With the BBC News reporting at the weekend that identity fraud has gone up by 18% in 2019, to over 223,000 ID theft cases, this is a real issue that can affect us all. Mike Haley, Chief Executive of CIFAS (The Counter Fraud Organisation) stated that this will only get worse with more people working at home and being more vulnerable – the cyber criminals have not done lockdown, they have been fiercely working to maximise on our vulnerabilities to try to catch us out! After all the reward for cyber criminals on a property transaction are huge!

The BBC News reported of a 30 year old women who applied for a mortgage and only then realised her identity had been stolen when her mortgage application was refused! To date she has a personal cost of over £10,000 and nowhere to claim that back. This is a faceless crime, carried out from anywhere in the world and a real danger to us all!

A huge thank you to our panel of experts:

Rt. Hon. Lord Blunkett

Mr Neil Walsh – Chief of the Cybercrime and Anti-Money Laundering Section of the United Nations

Nicola Whiting MBE – Chief Strategy Officer of Titania Group

Nick Parfitt – Head of Market Planning, Acuris Risk Intelligence

Joe Pepper – CEO TM Group

The conversation was insightful and honest and the main take aways from the event are to be more vigilant, take responsibility for our own personal safety, talk to people more rather than emails and don’t just hand over sensitive information about yourself, take time to check and stop and think. Perhaps going back to speaking to people more may become the new norm again!

The video for this event will be released shortly, we’ll keep you posted and you can view a few small clips on linkedIn @Angela Edwards

BBC NEWS ARTICLE ON ID FRAUD – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53106532

USEFUL LINKS FROM UNITED NATION OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME:

http://solutions.refinitiv.com/world-check-kyc-screening/?utm_content=World%20Check-UKI-EMEA-G-EN-BMM&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=68832_RefinitivBAUPaidSearch&elqCampaignId=5917&utm_term=+aml&gclid=CjwKCAjw88v3BRBFEiwApwLevWhABpjlSbhRe8PuxVTqMfmaLBItS5alRJCvC4CtwYggWEwzbqtprxoC63QQAvD_BwE