I live in Europe, where I have been often told that anyone can have my bank account number - the only thing they can do with it is give me money.

I understand that the sorry situation in the Land Of The Formerly Known As Free makes it so that if the Social Security Number, or the bank account number, fall into the wrong hands, the person is up the creek without a paddle, but do I risk the same thing in Europe ?

Especially given the fact that the notion of credit rating has nothing to do with what is practiced in the US, what are my risks ? Because I have been noticing that spam has increasingly been present in my native language in my mailbox. It used to be that anything in English not from a friend I knew I could confidently delete without a thought - all the important stuff I got was normally not in English.

But now my mail is polluted with spam that is not in English. Heck, I have been receiving spam in four languages now ! And that makes it a bit more tricky (not much, though) to get rid of the stuff easily.

I know this will get worse before it gets better (hmm, will it ever actually get better ?), so I am wondering : what is the risk to me ?