Co.'s House Unable to Stop Identity Theft

Another year, another identity fraud crisis within the Government.

This time the agency involved is Companies House - the registry of corporate information - and the latest swindle has apparently yielded "hundreds of thousands of pounds" for villains targeting the world's major oil companies.

It all revolves around criminals fraudulently filling in forms that notify Companies House that a business has changed its address. Once the official records have been altered, applications are made from the fake premises for fuel charge cards.

These charge cards are then used to fill up vehicles from the relevant petrol stations (which have included some of Britain's biggest forecourt names), with the transactions usually conducted late at night when number plates are trickier to read on the closed circuit television.

The police in counties including Cheshire and Leicestershire have also been notified, although nothing seems to have been done yet, while Companies House says it's powerless to act (again).

"We act primarily as a registry of company information," the agency explains. "We must accept all documents sent to us in 'good faith'. We do not have any powers to verify or validate the information - including signatures."