The fraudsters were not consoled by the nerds’ on screen virtual counterparts filling the breech, as the pseudo-lives of game legends Lara Croft, the Nintendog and the small blue angry bird, though exciting, have still left them with disappointingly small bank balances, and an appalling credit rating.

wolfie

A clinic spokesman explained: ‘Usually we’d just ask for another means of payment but these people often come in the Friday before a bank holiday, and by the time the cheque is finally declined all there’s left to contact is a pot of ash, which makes it very difficult to set up a direct debit.’

Customers are unhappy about the development, however. ‘Now they don’t accept cheques I don’t know what I’ll do,’ explained one potential patient. ‘What with all the credit card fraud about, if I use my Visa there’s a good chance my identity would be cloned, which would really defeat the purpose of what I’m paying all this money for in the first place.’

Bad Tooth

Impersonation of medical practitioners is on the rise

A Home Office report today suggested that it was ‘highly likely’ Doctor Who star David Tennant would have his identity stolen by a younger man ‘within the year’.  The report criticised Tennant, 38, for his lax attitude to personal security, and noted that such carelessness ‘has had serious consequences in the past’, citing the case of veteran actor Colin Baker who was left homeless for 18 months in 1987 after his identity was stolen by fraudster Sylvester McCoy.  Experts have urged Tennant to regularly check his bank statements for suspicious scarf purchases, while police have told him he might also want to keep an eye on his motor and his girlfriend.

‘Everyone already has had to suffer the mild humiliation of revealing their embarrassing middle names and date of birth to everybody within earshot while phoning their bank from work,’ said a representative from the Financial Services Association. ‘But increased identity fraud means we now need personal details that friends wouldn’t usually reveal to friends or work colleagues.’

Several banks are already piloting the new security measures with the result that one London office was witness to a caller giving the responses ‘Spoons’; ‘plump-rumps-dot-com’ and ‘glory hole in Rio, but she turned out to be a bloke.’ ‘It certainly livened up a dull day in the House of Commons’ said one Westminster secretary.

However there is concern that with an increasing number of call centres bringing in automated systems, callers will be required to speak loudly and or indeed shout their sexual habits down the line. ‘We had a bloke in the office trying to book some cinema tickets’ said another office worker. ‘And all we could hear was our office manager shouting ‘Doggy! No, doggy! Randy Grannies!’ and ‘Stranglewank!’ He was only buying tickets for ‘Toy Story 3’.

In this particular case it transpires that the institution was not automated at all, it was just the call centre workers’ finding a way to entertain themselves. ‘It’s one of the few perks of a very boring job,’ said an employee.

‘Some of them are quite brazen about it’ said D.I. Hooper of the Metropolitan Police; ‘Going around in gangs of eight or ten, all of them trying to pass themselves off as the same individual!’

It is not known how they identity thieves got the personal details of Santa Claus, but they seem to know where he lives, how he dresses and even the names of his pet reindeer. ‘Apparently he uses the password ‘Rudolf’ for everything.’

Police have warned the public to be extra careful when dealing with members of the public who may at first seem to be dressed like Father Christmas. ‘If you see a group of office workers staggering down the high street clutching vodka bottles, the one at the back wearing a Santa hat may not necessarily be the real Father Christmas.’

Parents of young children however seemed unconcerned that there may be one or two impostors out there. ‘Every year we take our children to the department store to meet Father Christmas’ said one mother in a Leeds shopping centre. ‘We send them into a dark little grotto on their own to sit on Santa’s knee. Why would anyone but the real Santa want to do that all day?’

NewsBiscuit