A couple have explained how they fell victim to a £25,000 identity fraud and faced a "horrendous" situation during a cruise holiday.

Stephen Ratchford, 64, and his wife Karen were looking forward to a relaxing getaway but it turned into a nightmare as they faced the stress of trying to cancel multiple loans taken out in his name. The pair flew out to Malta on October 3 and joined a cruise ship.

However, just a couple of days into their holiday while they are visiting Split in Croatia, they noticed they had been "SIM-jacked" and no longer had control of their mobile phone numbers. Stephen said: "Some scammer got hold of new SIM cards with our numbers - which obviously meant we lost ours - and they had total control of our phone numbers."