There’s a rather disturbing article in the Guardian today. A retired teacher put £250,000 into her bank account following the sale of her house. Sometime between the deposit in May this year and three weeks ago, it vanished.
Margaret Wilkinson is scrupulously careful with her money. She closely guards her banking details and shreds letters and correspondence before throwing them away. In May, Margaret, a 59-year-old retired teacher, sold her north London home and placed £250,000 in a Lloyds TSB savings account.
Just three weeks ago her offer on a new home in Surrey was accepted and she went to transfer the money.
Only then did she discover that the whole lot had been stolen from her account in one of the most serious cases yet documented of ID fraud.
Identity theft is a crime that many see as raging out of control, with more than £1bn stolen every year.
Actually, the biggest fraud being committed here is by the Guardian. “Mrs Wilkinson” suffered cheque fraud. The tricksters forged her signature on a cheque and the bank was too lazy to take a proper look. Much as Barclays did when my wife accidentally wrote a cheque for the milk bill on my account. This is not identity theft; it is cheque fraud. And, significantly, the £1.3Bn is itself a fraud. I know I’ve said it before but as the big lie is being repeated ad nauseam, I have to constantly refute it in the vain hope that people will realise that both government and media are lying to us. Identity theft – and there is no such offense on the statute book – consists of masquerading as another person; taking on aspects of their identity and passing oneself off as them over a period of time in order to carry out other forms of fraud or criminal activity – one of which may well be cheque fraud. However, it is not necessary to carry out the former in order to achieve the latter. A simple forged signature will suffice.
What is happening here is a classic misinformation exercise, softening us up for identity cards and the database state. MPs assure us that handing our identities over to them and franchising them back will in some way “protect” us from this type of theft. That, too, is a fraud. Identity theft will indeed become an offence under the act – it will also be much simpler to execute with all that valuable information on everybody in one insecure place. Insecure? It will be a government agency managing it; of course it will be insecure, whatever made you think otherwise?
Yes I heard a stat once that at the most 1 signature in 10 gets checked by the bank on cheques and I suspect for credit/debit cards it will be far far less This is a huge cost-cutting measure by the banks as it requires manpower to check individual documents.
The complicit nature of the media in this ID parade is disquieting but unsurprising. Again, I have a blog in draft about a variety of such stuff, your habit of beating me to it is becoming tiresome 😉
This is a most unfortunate case. However, the Guardian article (which is my only source) states that a false passport was used to fool the bank during a personal visit to get a banker’s draft. This strikes me as significantly different from the simpler case of your wife using your chequebook rather than hers (where my understanding is that nowadays the cheque would not leave the recipient’s bank for yours, let alone have the signature checked, unless there was repudiation of the transaction).
The boundary between so called “identity fraud” and cheque fraud is not clear or widely agreed. However, the use of an “identity document” as part of the fraud makes me view this incident as identity fraud, rather than as cheque fraud alone.
What is not clear to me is whether the fraudster was in possession of a cheque from the victim’s real cheque book, a forged cheque (which could have had the cheque number confirmed for such a large transaction, or provide some evidence of sophistication of attack), or whether payment for the bankers draft was made by some other means.
Also, it is not clear to me how the bank knew that the passport, in the victim’s name, was that of the victim and not another person of the same name (and was not the Passport Office scheme available by then, to check for forged passports). Was the bank relying on possession of the chequebook, or was some other verification used.
It seems the bank was very careless, given the size of the transaction. However, without fuller information, we cannot be certain.
Concerning any benefit that would arise in such circumstances from the Government’s proposed National Identity Scheme (NIdS), I think there is some. The bank issuing the draft would have been able to confirm that the person present held the correct identity card (for which the digital signature would, for all reasonable purposes, be unforgable). They would also have the opportunity of checking one or more biometrics, should the bank deem that necessary and have biometric equipment available at the branch in question. However, current levels of fraud that would be prevented by the NIdS do not, alone, justify the required investment and running costs of that scheme.
Best regards
”’Longrider replies: Broadly, I agree, there are grey areas and the bank was appallingly lax. However, using a false passport for the purposes of deception is just that; deception. It does not infer (without further evidence) that the perpetrator was masquerading as the victim for anything other than this transaction. That, therefore, does not make it identity theft – just plain old fashioned theft.”’
”’Those who have been victims of identity theft will tell you that their whole lives are taken over by someone else – opening bank accounts, taking out loans, buying high-value goods and so on. These people may even claim benefits and obtain rented property in the name of the victim who then finds themselves being pursued for the defaulted payments – that is identity theft.”’
”’The problem with identity cards and the NIR is that it will fail in exactly the way this case has – if people do not properly check documents now, they will continue to do so. No system is more reliable than its lowest common denominator. And that will always be the human factor.”’
”’What is happening here is the politics of fear; fear of having our identity stolen. It may well be on the increase, but it is relatively rare and will be made worse rather than better under government proposals.”’