YORK people were warned today to beware another "St Nick" this Christmas - not friendly old Santa, but fraudsters who nick their identity.

A report revealed that with identity theft soaring by 29 per cent nationally, Yorkshire is one of the country's worst hotspots -with at least six cases in the York and Tadcaster area in the last year.

Dustbins are being raided in a bid to discover personal information, while other people are being trapped into giving away their details on the phone or internet, said CreditExpert, the UK's only online credit monitoring and identity fraud prevention service.

The company said identity theft affected 100,000 people in the last year, and was costing the UK £1.3 billion each year.

Director of consumer affairs Jill Stevens said fraudsters thwarted by new chip and PIN security methods were turning to identity theft to steal hard-earned cash this Christmas.

But with the cost of the festive season burning a hole in even the deepest of pockets, the last thing consumers wanted was to help a fraudster go on a spree.

"Although the end loser is usually the defrauded bank, without help it can take you up to 400 hours to unravel the muddle left by a fraudster who has used your good credit history," she said.

"All the time his debts are on your record you probably won't be able to get credit yourself. As the average spend by "St Nick" is £1,000 per account, it really is worth making sure this doesn't happen to you."

Credit monitoring services alert customers each time an application for credit is made in their name.

"If you know you haven't made any applications, then you can act to stop the fraudster in his tracks," said Ms Stevens.

"If you are unlucky enough to be targeted, there are experts on hand to help immediately to make sure your credit history is protected."

The company said it took, on average, 18 months for victims of identity fraud to realise they had been targeted.

Updated: 10:58 Saturday, December 11, 2004