Life insurance broker Peter King has been banned by the Financial Services Authority after he made a total of 39 false applications for life insurance in order to pocket the normal commission fees.

A spokesman for the FSA told reporters that they would have dearly liked to impose a substantial fine on Mr King, but were prevented from making any such demand as the shamed Mr King is now bankrupt.

"Peter King acted dishonestly and without integrity and posed a risk to consumers and to confidence in the financial system as a whole," said Margaret Cole, the FSA's director of enforcement.

"The FSA will not hesitate to take action against individuals or firms who break our rules and put customers at risk of fraud."

"The names used related to real people, such as your family, friends and former clients," the FSA said.

Of the 39 fraudulent policy applications, which were all made after June 2007, 30 were in the names of people who did not know anything about the applications or who simply did not exist.

One man, whom Mr King put down for a life insurance policy, who preferred not to be named, said that he felt ‘violated’ by the experience.

‘To think that my details were being used so that some man could make monetary gains without my knowledge is outrageous. It makes me feel violated’ he said.

Another victim of the scam talks of his surprise when he found out that his details had been used by Mr King to make a false application for life insurance.

‘I really had no idea that my details had been used in this way,’ said the woman. ‘It’s scary that I had no knowledge at all of my details being out there on an insurance policy which I had nothing to do with.

She went on to say: ‘It does make you cautious about who can have access to your details. It really highlights how with such a small amount of information a lucrative scam can be pulled off.’

The Financial Services Authority said that they believe Mr King was making the applications in order to use the commission money to invest in various properties.

His scam was uncovered when one of the four insurance firms which had received the false applications and were developing suspicions, reported him to the Financial Services Authority saying that they thought the applications made to them were bogus.

No one else was implicated in Mr King’s scam as at the time of the fraud King was the only director at the firm and he appears to have been the sole person to gain from these fraudulent applications.