14 DAY TRIAL // The CEO of the fourth largest bank in the UK discovered an identity theft that cost him several thousands of pounds, as the Daily Mail reports. Andy Hornby was on vacation when a person in the staff of HBOS, the bank he manages, told him that his account had been frozen, because of some unusual transactions that had been reported over the last couple of days.
The total amount of money Hornby has been ripped off of is not known yet. The identity of the thief is also a mystery, although a person who looked nothing like the director was caught on a camera installed near an ATM machine, as he was withdrawing money from the official's account. A source is reported to have said that the police believe that the thief is "from a Nigerian background," although many wonder how this could be determined by simply looking at the blurry image caught on the surveillance camera.
"It's hugely embarrassing for the head of a banking group to be so lax with personal information that someone can steal his identity. After all, banks are constantly warning customers to guard their private details. [...] Bank staff had to call Andy on holiday to say they were freezing his accounts. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone." added the source for the Daily Mail.
It is believed that the conman found all the data necessary for the theft on the Internet. The fact that the bank official didn't properly secure his information, especially when bank workers are well aware of the dangers that an identity theft usually entails, is somewhat inexplicable. With all that, since in January, the CEO of another bank in the UK (Barclays) was conned by a man who pretended to be the manager himself, this most recent case is not the only one. The thief in the other case called one of Barclay's offices and asked, in the name of the CEO and by giving personal details found on the Internet, to be issued with another credit card, which he used to withdraw ?10,000 from the chief executive's account.