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A SERVICE offering a complete “revenge package” in which people can destroy the financial status and relationships of their enemies at the click of a mouse is being offered over the internet.
For as little as £10 a month, customers of the confidentialaccess.com website can make the credit ratings of people they dislike plummet and even have them suspected of fraud.
Their bank accounts can be shut down remotely and all their essential utilities cut off.
Fake e-mails and text messages which purport to come from someone else, such as the victim’s spouse, can be sent containing false accusations of affairs or sexual liaisons.
The new “revenge” services are the latest example of the harm the internet can cause individuals.
A House of Lords committee report published last week described criminality on the web as so bad that it was like “the Wild West”.
The website, which also offers to create perfect “novelty” copies of any documentation necessary to enable the customer to gain revenge, promises its services “can create mayhem”.
“CA [Confidential Access] can make it so someone couldn’t even get an ice cream cone on credit again.”
One way of doing this, it explains, is to apply repeatedly for credit using the victim’s name and multiple addresses, leading inevitably to a red flag from the Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System (Cifas).
Credit is then stopped until an investigation by Cifas decides whether the subject has been the perpetrator or victim of fraud.
CA offers further ideas of how to use its services. “Create some false payslips and send them back returned to the victim’s employer and watch them lose their job,” it advises.
“Destroy a person’s bank account using our novelty bank statements. Bank accounts are like gold dust now; return[ing] a novelty bank statement with their details back to the bank works for killing someones [sic] credit card account.
“Watch your victim cry when all his/her accounts are closed.”
The website states that even accounts on eBay, the auction website, and PayPal, the internet payment system, can easily be sabotaged.
Many of its activities may be illegal. Senior police sources said confidentialaccess.com, which is apparently hosted on a Singapore-based internet server but run by Britons, is under investigation by more than one force.
The operators, who claim also to have bases in Hong Kong, Dublin and Boston, offer to fabricate a large range of documents, ranging from UK driving licences, car ownership papers and MoT certificates to P60s, payslips and bank statements.
Most items are priced at a few hundred pounds but basic membership, which entitles customers to many of the “revenge” options, costs £10 a month.
Payments can be made either over the internet, or directly into a Lloyds TSB bank account in the name of A J Smith.
Once the money is received, items are dispatched within a week or two.
The website boasts of the ultra-genuine appearance of its fakes, which are also intended to be used by customers to acquire credit from banks.
The website operators even offer to register customers on the electoral roll to a variety of properties with which they have no connection.
Verbal and written references for non-existent employment records are also supplied.
The website’s forum pages are full of glowing testimonies from satisfied customers who have apparently used CA products.
The Sunday Times obtained a fake British driving licence for £300 using a bogus name and the photograph of one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists - Adam Yahiye Gadahn, who has been accused of being an Al-Qaeda operative.
His picture appears on the fake licence, complete with a realistic-looking hologram and markings, next to a false name.
Confidential Access claims to be offering legal services but the identity of its operators, who use the name the Caxess Corporation, is hidden behind untraceable phone numbers and PO Box numbers that lead to offshore courier companies.
The website subscribes to the revenge ethos in other ways too. On its forum its site administrator displayed a letter from a fraud investigator for the Royal Bank of Scotland in which he requests that the Singapore server take down the site because it is breaching trade-mark law.
In response, the site’s operators have posted the man’s home address together with the name of his partner and suggested that subscribers post excrement through their letterbox.
Other CA members suggest letting down his car tyres, instigating a Cifas credit inquiry on him and even “paying him a visit”.
Sources at the Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed that the man, whose identity is being protected by The Sunday Times, has received threatening phone calls.
A bank spokesman said the site had recently been reported to the police.
Richard Clayton, a Cambridge University researcher on internet security and adviser to the House of Lords science and technology committee, said: “I have never come across a site devoted to offering revenge in this way before.
“The only similar thing is one or two of the extreme right-wing websites which list addresses and suggest people go and beat up political opponents.”
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Lets support that company, its about time someone stood up to the pathetic and blatently corrupt government in our once great country. Brown, blair and the house of lords are sucking our taxpaying money into their own accounts. that site does not promote any violence what so ever.
ahunter, london, england
I agree with Hans.
Its up to the individual. maybe someone should target Brown & Blair to let them know how the rest of us live under threat because of their bungling over the past 10m years!
Ed case, London, England
Why can't you trace the hosts/owners of this site? In this day and age and resources available it MUST be possible, answers please
Kyle Watts, Swansea, Wales
it would be refreshing to see the people actually commiting blatant identity theft/fraud in this country being scrutinised/pursued for a change rather than companies that ARE in fact operating within the law.
despite what you may have read or heard cifas ruin many peoples lives including people innocent of absolutely any wrongdoing by slapping a marker on their file and making it near on impossible to obtain any form of credit and freezing many of their active accounts if not all.
tcm london, no-one will take that site down, they pride themselves on that very fact.
frank abagnale, rio de janeiro,
The problem is the site is not actually breaking any law though are they. Should we ban DIY stores from selling hammers? Confidential Access seem to offer a wide range of services for a wide range of uses. It is up to the individual whether he/she wants to break the law or not.
Hans, St Andrews,
I have just clicked onto this website. Why is it still live?
I have recently been a victim of fraud when my bank account was used for other purposes and I can definitly tell you it was a daunting experience.
tcm, london, uk
""CIFAS explains that fraudulent documents and information can be used to apply repeatedly for credit using the victimâs name and multiple addresses.""
Don't let them. This is easy to deter and you can protect yourselff.
By taking proactive steps, individuals can protect themselves, providing lenders/banks/credit card companies with an indication and warning system which applies to ALL lenders and not just CIFAS members.
In the slight chance a fraudulent application being made, then the victim can prove without any element of doubt that they didn't submit the application. Futhermore biometirc forensic evididence would be available to the police as a means of an aid to identiifying the perpetrator. No other system acheives this.
Visit www.freeidprotection.co.uk.
Jamie Jamieson, Scarborough. North Yorkshire.,
Once again a perfect example of an activity that should be stopped right now. Why is it that governments and law agencies prove to be so limp in dealing with these types of people? I would have thought it was quite easy to find the 'owners' of this service. For goodness sake why don't politicians and the law do us all a favour - find the people that offer this service and take them out! That's why we pay taxes.
Sparks, uk,