A man has been sentenced to prison for 15 months for using personal data gathered from neighbours’ Facebook and Friends Reunited postings to hack their bank accounts and steal more than £35,000.
Iain Wood, who owns a carpet-fitting business, befriended people who lived in his block of flats in Newcastle on social networking sites such as Facebook, and used the sites to find out as much personal information about them as possible.
With this data, Wood 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 he was unable to access bank accounts, Wood used the personal information to provide requested security information, such as mother’s maiden name, when prompted.
The scam ended when Wood 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.
Prison term
Wood was sent to prison for up to 15 months for the offences.
