What Is Address Fraud And How To Not Fall Prey To It

The Bollywood blockbuster Phir Hera Pheri familiarized us with an address fraud in a Ponzi scheme. The protagonists were duped into this Ponzi scheme with a false, fraudulent office address. The address and the fake organization set-up can be considered address fraud. To address such fraud and other address complexities Pataa has come up with a digital address code which issues a unique address short code for your address.

There is no doubt that address fraud sounds terrifying, but what is even more frightening is when one is unaware, and no action is taken to prevent this from happening. Address fraud is commonly used to dupe people and organizations. Our contemporary world demands that we be meticulous and prepared in all ways to safeguard ourselves, our belongings, and our data.

You should be highly wary of address fraud because anyone can be a victim. Let’s get a deeper look at what address fraud is and how it can be prevented.

The Scam Of Address Fraud

Address fraud is a sort of fraud in which a person utilizes  a false or incorrect address to their advantage, financially or otherwise. A nonexistent address is referred to as a fake address. An incorrect address can be, for instance, a previous address that hasn’t been changed, an acquaintance, or a family member’s address. Address fraud may be done in several methods, and most countries see it as a criminal offense . The legal consequences for a crime may include fines and imprisonment, depending on its seriousness.

There are various ways to commit address fraud, one of the most common ways to open a bank account using a fictitious address. Another thing that perpetrators do is perform identity theft to steal documents with personal information by pretending to be someone else to receive credit approval. Once approval is given, the person can easily acquire debt in that person’s name and not hold any accountability by not paying any charges.

Someone can use a fraudulent address to transfer all your mail to a fake address and get ahold of essential documents and personal information. With your financial mail, especially, the perpetrator can use that to interfere with your bank statements or order new checks or credit cards.

Non- existent organizations can also use fraudulent address to form offices and

dupe people and organizations. One such example is that of a non-existent infrastructure company, called Harbin Electric, which existed at a false address. The FIR mentioned that during the company’s registration, they registered their office in Vile Parle, Mumbai. It was found that no company by that name existed at the given address. This meant that the company was registered at a false address and no company like that existed despite being registered. They were responsible for defrauding the Registrar of Companies.

Fighting Address Fraud

1. Make your bank and other vital accounts paperless:

Go paperless with your bank and any other sensitive accounts and use online methods to receive important documents and information to avoid going to a fraudulent address.

2. Be wary who you share your personal information with:

Pay attention to who you are giving out your address and personal information, especially when shopping online.

Ensure you’re not disclosing private information to wrong individuals when purchasing online or utilizing third-party websites.

To begin with, make sure the website’s URL is spelt correctly. To defraud you, scammers frequently use almost similar site URLs.

Ensure that the site is secure. You can do so by checking if it starts with “HTTPS://” By the URL, there is a green padlock symbol. Your data is encrypted on secure websites so hackers and con artists cannot access it.

3. Check your credit card report

Check your credit card reports to ensure no unusual activity has occurred, like the existence of accounts that you might not have opened.

Taking the steps above will help you prevent scams and be more cautious with all your personal and sensitive information. A predominant sentiment in these cases is that it is better to be careful than sorry.

Here is where we welcome Pataa, Pataa has introduced the concept of digital address code, which contains code based addresses based on location intelligence. It replaces your long and complex address with a address short code and avoids any fraud.

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