Garlik, the online ID fraud PIs, head stateside

Fighting cyber crime

16 May 2008 11:38 GMT / By Katie Scott

It was our website of the day this time last year, and now the Garlik online fraud busting service is going international.

Garlik’s service is the world’s first designed specifically to counter the growing wave of ID theft.

For those of you lucky enough not to have been victims, this is when fraudsters exploit the wealth of personal information which is available online to manufacture identities illegally.

The team behind the online bank, Egg, set up the Garlik service to ward off these online vampires (geddit?).

They advise consumers on how to find and understand what personal information is in the public domain about them and manage how their identities appear online so to cut down the risk.

And now the service is going stateside where, last year alone, online identity theft affected 8.1 million Americans and cost the US economy $45 billion.

Garlik has won $5m of extra finance and signed a deal with CPP North America, a "life assistance product" company with more than 11.3 million customers across North America, Europe and Asia.

The company is now setting a New York office and, says Tom Ilube, Garlik's CEO, is now "... well positioned to bring fresh ideas to the fight against ID theft in the USA".