The ‘worrying trend' that puts you at risk of identity fraud
This practice leaves people vulnerable to criminals taking out loans or credit in their name, leading to significant personal debt.
Cifas's latest Fraudscape report revealed over 118,000 suspected identity fraud cases between January and June 2025, with AI significantly exacerbating the threat through synthetic identities and fabricated profiles.
The report also highlighted a rise in employee fraud, including individuals concealing background information and engaging in "polygamous working" or using fraudulent references.
Cifas CEO Mike Haley described fraud as a "national emergency" supercharged by AI, urging urgent, coordinated cross-sector collaboration to combat the evolving threat.
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Times
37 minutes ago
- Times
How Gordon Brown's ‘baby bonds' failed to raise a nation of investors
Rachel Reeves wants stubborn savers to embrace investing to earn better returns and boost the economy. The chancellor is looking to rip up red tape to let banks to nudge savers towards the stock market, and is also considering cutting back the cash Isa allowance to ensure more of our savings are invested. However, the New Labour chancellor Gordon Brown also had an ambition to create a healthier savings culture, and it did not exactly turn out as he had hoped. Brown wanted to raise a generation of investors by giving every baby at least £250 to kickstart the habit. When detailing the policy in his 2003 budget, he said: 'The child trust fund symbolises the difference between those who believe in modernising the welfare state and those who wish it to wither away. 'At age 18, on the basis of historic rates of return, the child trust fund will accumulate assets that will enable all young people to have more of the choices that were once available only to some.' The tax-free scheme was designed to encourage parents to invest for their children's future, and all babies born between September 1, 2002 and January 2, 2011 were eligible. In all, 6.3 million accounts were opened, and the government paid £2 billion into the accounts, which could be accessed from 18. Yet child trust funds were scrapped by the coalition government in 2011 and many have since been lost or forgotten. Some investors have even been locked out of their funds. The first children with funds turned 18 in September 2020. The latest available data shows the total value of the funds is about £9 billion. While up to 2.8 million accounts have now matured, of these, about a quarter (670,000) have not been claimed. On average it's estimated that each young person could have an account worth about £2,000. A further study revealed that most of the accounts did not have any money paid into them between April 2023 and April 2024, suggesting they've been abandoned as a savings vehicle. Maike Currie, an investment and savings expert who worked for Hargreaves Lansdown until recently, said: 'Child trust funds were a victim of the age of austerity after the 2008 financial crisis. 'On reflection, they were always doomed to fail — starting with the elaborate name. Many people were put off, thinking these were the preserve of trust fund babies, while others simply did not know about them. 'This simply reiterates the importance of awareness and education if you're to reignite a nation of investors. If the government today fails on getting this right, they will have another flop on their hands with disastrous consequences.' Education about these accounts was lacking — and remains the case, as shown by a trip by Money in April to one school where many pupils had no idea they had a child trust fund. The initial sum of £250 was doubled to £500 for low-income families. Children had a second payment when they reached seven. However, in 2010, the initial payment was reduced to £50, or £100 for lower-income families, and the second payment at seven scrapped. The first payment was abolished entirely in 2011. New parents were also invited to choose a home for the free cash. They could invest it in the stock market (either choosing the investments themselves or selecting a stakeholder version where the investments were chosen by the provider) or choose a savings-style account where interest was paid. If an account was not opened by the child's parent, HM Revenue & Customs set up a stakeholder account on the child's behalf. Many parents never engaged with the scheme. HMRC stepped in on behalf of 1.7 million parents (28 per cent) who failed to find a home for the £250 within the required 12-month period. All HMRC-allocated accounts were investment-based. According to the Share Foundation, a charity that helps to trace unclaimed funds, more than £400 million is sitting unclaimed in HMRC-allocated accounts. More than half of the unclaimed accounts worth £274 million belong to young adults on low incomes. About 55,000 trust funds mature every month and the charity forecasts that nearly £1 billion will be unclaimed for low-income young adults by the end of this parliament. Gavin Oldham from the Share Foundation said: 'Since September 2020, when the first account holders started turning 18, child trust fund owners have been able to withdraw funds or transfer savings into an adult Isa. 'Yet there's an enormous amount of money sitting unclaimed by youngsters, who could use it to go towards tuition fees, a first home or simply to kickstart their own savings for the future.' The charity has matched more than 85,000 young people with their child trust funds, recovering more than £165 million for young adult account owners. The accounts will continue to mature until 2029, when the last children to get a fund will turn 18, but the worry is that many won't be reunited with their money. • NatWest says stolen £8,500 child trust fund is not its problem There were many other criticisms of the scheme. For example, the investment options were limited and expensive. A parliamentary report highlighted that investment charges for managing the funds were 'very high'. Another issue is that no provision was made for children with disabilities who were unable to manage their own finances. A report has previously suggested 80,000 such young people were unable to access their funds without their families going through the Court of Protection — a process that can be costly and time-consuming. If the amount in the fund is relatively small, the legal fees might outweigh claiming the cash. Analysts have looked for positive outcomes. There was some evidence to show that the accounts appeared to have led some parents to open savings accounts for older siblings who did not benefit. However, it found the scheme did not have a statistically significant effect on the rate of savings for children overall. Education is essential when it comes to encouraging people to invest. Many prefer to keep their savings safe in risk-free cash accounts, where they are unlikely to keep pace with inflation. If you have long enough to ride out the ups and downs of the stock market, investing usually results in a much higher return. A £100 monthly investment into the average global equity fund for the past 18 years (£21,600) would today be worth about £52,800, according to analysis by the investment platform AJ Bell. The same £100 a month saved in an average child's savings account over the last 18 years at 2.93 per cent would today be worth about £28,465, according to Moneyfacts. That's 85 per cent less than if the money had been invested. Currie said: 'Education, awareness and ease are the cornerstones to creating a nation of investors or to put it differently: there needs to be a seismic shift in trust, ease and confidence. 'In the UK, investing is still associated with gambling — people must understand that when you're investing you're owning real assets and the potential for future growth. It's also about getting to grips with the concept of risk and understanding different levels of risk — and the hidden risks of holding too much cash against a backdrop of inflation and longer lives. These are big hurdles to overcome to establish a culture of retail investing in the UK.' • How to get a nation of savers investing Laith Khalaf from AJ Bell said that the UK had a long way to go before reaching the investing culture in the US. Khalaf said: 'The US has been a leader in terms of financial products such as unit trust funds, exchange traded funds, trackers and self-invested personal pensions. As a result there is a greater familiarity with investments and probably a greater risk appetite amongst everyday Americans. That's positive for US investors and stocks over the long term, but it's not without its risk.' In the UK there's perhaps not enough risk being taken, with many people holding large sums of cash and never considering the stock market. Khalaf said: 'At least £100 billion is sitting in cash Isa accounts held by savers with £20,000 or more in cash, but no stocks and shares Isa investments. 'The chancellor's efforts to ignite a retail investing revolution are therefore well met. Getting more people to invest in the stock market will be positive for their long-term wealth and for the economy as a whole. In particular a regular investment plan can help reassure those who don't like the full thrills and spills of the stock market because it leads to a smoother journey.' He added that some things needed to be addressed to encourage investing. 'For example, it's nothing short of bizarre that the Treasury wants people to invest in domestic stocks but charges stamp duty of 0.5 per cent on UK share purchases. An investor can buy shares in a US company like Apple with no stamp duty to pay, but if they buy £10,000 of London-listed AstraZeneca shares, they will pay the government £50 for the privilege.' • The Share Foundation is campaigning for the government to start automatically releasing unclaimed CTF funds once account holders turn 21.• You can search for lost CTF funds using a free HMRC-linked search tool. Have your national insurance number to hand. Tayo Olutunde, 22, received a £2,500 windfall last year when he decided to check whether he had a child trust fund account. Tayo, who lives in Leeds and is studying accounting and finance, watched a TikTok video that prompted him to check with his parents about a child trust fund. They remembered setting one up and contributing to it for a time but couldn't remember with which bank. Olutunde said: 'As a family we moved a lot, including abroad. The contributions would have stopped when we went abroad and the paperwork was lost. I came across the Share Foundation who helped me locate where my account was — with NatWest. 'It took a long time to access the money because I didn't know which address was registered with my account, so I kept failing security. Eventually I got through and found I had £2,400. I was shocked.' Olutunder decided to spend about £400 on a holiday to Italy to celebrate his 21st birthday and invested the rest. But he said more needs to be done to educate young people about the world of investing. He said: 'I have a friend who also located his child trust fund recently. He spent most of it on a fast car, which I'm not sure is the best use of the money.' Scott and Julie James were thrilled to receive the £250 from the government for their daughter Holly when she was born in 2009. The couple, who live in Glasgow, decided to invest the sum to start building a nest egg for her future. Scott, 54, who works as a company director, said: 'The government was giving away free money which was great. Sadly the rest of the scheme wasn't quite so impressive. We wanted to invest the money, knowing that stocks and shares perform better than cash over the longer term. 'But at the time we opened the account, there wasn't a huge number of companies to choose from, and those that did offer child trust funds had a limited investment choice and the charges were high.' They opened an account anyway and it was topped up with money from grandparents. But when junior Isas were launched two years later, Scott felt they offered a bigger range of investments and lower charges, so they started saving in one of those accounts instead. Scott says they are still saving for Holly, now aged 16, perhaps to help with a first property purchase or whatever she might need in adulthood. He said: 'The child trust fund was a nice try, but it just didn't work.
Telegraph
38 minutes ago
- Telegraph
‘Leave our kids alone': One parent's anger as school fees rise under Labour
As a small business owner, Emma says the new VAT on private school fees is hitting families like hers hard. 'It's now just under £10,000 pounds for each term in the senior school,' she says. 'By the time we're paying the school fees… My husband and I have paid our taxes. We've absolutely done everything we can.' Instead of spending money on luxuries, she adds, 'my husband and I are putting money into the local economy, paying local teachers… And that's even before you get into all the kind of charity work the school does'. Emma is frustrated by what she sees in school catchment areas. 'There's a moral turpitude to that kind of attitude… renting flats near the school, not even living there to get the residency… How can you live with yourselves?' Meanwhile, private school parents are painted as villains. 'When we get vilified as private school children, parents… I do start to lose the plot a bit.' Her message to the Government is simple: 'Leave our kids alone.' She adds, 'By not sending my two children to state school, I'm saving the Government… about seven and a half thousand pounds per child per year… We're not taking anything away from the state at all.'
BBC News
38 minutes ago
- BBC News
Plea after 11-year-old injured in Southampton hit-and-run
The family of an 11-year-old boy left "traumatised" after being seriously injured in a hit-and-run collision have called for the driver to come suffered two broken hips when he was struck by a car while on an e-scooter near his home in Thornhill, Southampton, last month. Hampshire Constabulary said the car involved did not remain at the scene and has appealed for witnesses to come parents have also calling for tougher policing of e-scooters - illegal for under-16s to ride - after discovering he had been using one at the time. His mother, Hollie, recalled rushing to the scene after being told Bradley had been hit by a car shortly after 19:00 BST on 30 July."He was on the pavement. He had blood on his face, shaking from the shock," she said."Literally my mind was all over the place - I'm so grateful he's alive".He was taken to hospital with with four fractures on his hips and now has to use a wheelchair and waking he is expected to make a full recovery, Hollie said she felt "sick" knowing the driver drove off leaving Bradley said: "How could someone do that to a child? - leave them - I really can't believe it."He's absolutely traumatised. It's affected our whole family." She admitted Bradley was "having a go" on an e-scooter owned by his cousin when he was are not legally permitted to ride are effectively illegal for over-16s to use on public roads and pavements, with the exception of those in council-run hire said: "I'm going to take full accountability he was on an e-scooter on a road."We don't like e-scooters, we always make sure the kids wear helmets on their bikes - but he's made this one mistake." She said other parents should be aware of the dangers."I just want the police to be mindful and stop these children that are underage [using e-scooters]," she said."It might prevent this from happening again. We want people to be aware - we've leant the hard way."This has got to stop now - its not the first time accidents have happened on e-scooters."In a statement Hampshire Constabulary said: "We were called at 7.21pm on 30 July with reports of a car colliding with a pedestrian on Montague Avenue. "The car involved did not remain at the scene."Enquiries remain ongoing and anyone with information is encouraged to report this directly to police." You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
