Do not play into the hands of ID thieves

Most consumers have wised up to the fact that they should never let their bank cards out of their sight, and no longer do waiters walk away from the restaurant table with our cards in hand.

But most consumers are not quite as protective of their ID and other personal documents, allowing company employees to disappear with them to make copies without questioning the company’s privacy policies and procedures.

We should be asking these questions, because identity fraud is rife: armed with our ID and other personal information, a fraudster can open accounts in our name, and go on a spending spree which the companies will expect us to pay for.

Stacey Ellis-Clarke of Pietermaritzburg was appalled to discover that her account application form had been left in open sight in Mr Price’s Midlands Mall branch, a week after she had filled it in.

She applied in late November, and when she didn’t get the promised “SMS in two to three days” she returned to the store, and that’s when she saw her original application form, sitting on the counter, in plain sight.

“This annoyed me, but what really concerned me, and still does, is that ALL my personal information – ID, pay slips and bank statements – were missing.

“Nobody knew where they were, or why they had disappeared. I asked for the store manager’s contact number, and was refused.

“It being a Sunday, their head office was closed, and the staff on duty at the store were terribly rude and couldn’t care less.

“Meanwhile, my personal information is floating around, in some unknown’s possession.”

Before writing to In Your Corner, Ellis-Clarke did get a phone call from the store manager and the risk manager.

“But despite their promise to deal personally and immediately with this serious issue, I have heard nothing since early December,” she said.

“I feel that this is incredibly serious, as my identity could be stolen and my bank account pilfered.”

She was right to be annoyed and afraid.

Mr Price Money’s operations executive Colin Salvesen was suitably appalled on being alerted to this case by In Your Corner. “We fell horribly short when dealing with Ms Ellis-Clarke’s application,” he said.

Her documents were scanned but not returned to her; the scanned application was inexplicably not sent to the capturing department, hence it wasn’t processed, and some of those documents were left in a very visible processing tray – all completely contrary to the company’s policies.

And the staff in question made the situation worse by their “unsatisfactory” responses, he said. “This left a potential customer appalled at our service and lack of professionalism,” he said.

Salvesen said that from next month Mr Price would start moving from the current paper-based application procedure to capturing and processing all new account applications electronically, via an iPad app.

This is partly in order to comply with the handling of “sensitive” information provisions of the Protection of Personal Information Act (see sidebar).

Salvesen has since apologised to Ellis-Clarke verbally and in writing, and has initiated an audit of the processes currently in place at the store in question, “for further intervention where necessary”.

“I trust that my explanation of our current processes, and future enhancements to these processes as outlined above, further entrench our commitment to our customers’ safety and data privacy at the MRP Group,” he said.

It was an indeed an impressive “save”.