A man has been handed a 15-month prison sentence for using personal data gathered from friends’ Facebook and Friends Reunited postings to hack their bank accounts and steal more than £35,000.
Iain Wood befriended people who lived in his block of flats in Newcastle on social networking sites, and used the sites to purloin as much personal information about them as possible.
With this data, he was able to access victims’ bank accounts and ordered replacement bank cards to be delivered to his address. He then used these to withdraw more than £35,000 between June 2008 and June 2010, which he spent on gambling.
When Wood was unable to access bank accounts, he used the personal information to provide requested security information, such as mother’s maiden name, when prompted.
He was caught when he decided to directly transfer money out of a neighbour’s account into his own in November 2009. The victim was alerted to the fraud when he was contacted by his bank over the withdrawal of £1,500.
Judge Guy Whitburn, at Newcastle Crown Court, said during sentencing: “This is the first time I’ve come across a sophisticated fraud such as this. It was very well planned, complex and clever. He was using other people’s identities and there was a considerable breach of trust in assuming his neighbours’ identities.”
Prosecuting lawyer Neil Pallister said: “He said he had figured out how to access online bank accounts. He would go on and say he couldn’t remember the password and would be asked security questions about dates of birth and mother’s maiden names and he was able to give correct details in some cases.
“He said he would be on the computer 18 hours a day to find out information about people on websites such as Facebook and Friends Reunited. He would make friends with people on Facebook, and having got their user names he would try it on the bank websites, on the basis people use the same passwords. If that did not work he would fill in the security information, which he had got from Facebook and Friends Reunited.”
