[LINK] Identity theft [was facebook....]

[Daniel Rose]

Brendan Scott wrote:
> Jan Whitaker wrote:
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/13/internet Facebook's
>> code leak raises fears of fraud
> 
> Further down it says:
> 
>> Neil Munroe, external affairs director at Equifax, said: "More and
>> more consumers are signing up to these sites every day and chances
>> are they'll put on their date of birth, location, email, job and
>> marital status. Fraudsters can use this information to steal an
>> individual's identity and open accounts in their name."
> 
> This is something which confuses me.  If someone is going to commit an identity theft fraud, why do they need to have an identity to steal?  That is, why do they need a victim, why don't they just forge the whole kit and kaboodle?  
> 

For the face to face stuff, you can't get a birth certificate for someone who doesn't exist, you have to forge one.  This goes right back to Frederick Forsyth's novel 'The day of the jackal'.

My understanding is that almost always, the reason scammers want someone else's details is not so much to commit crime in general, but to borrow money in their name.  It's more flexible and reliable than draining their bank account, which is more easily traced and you don't know how much is in there.  If the name has no history, there's no credit record and not much chance of a gold American Express card.

It's much easier to use a real person, you 'leverage' off of the existing databases the institutions hold.  The banks won't led to people who don't exist.

Once you can get official ID with your face on a card with their details, you can get credit cards, GE money loans, interest free deals and so on, but that's small stuff.

On the 'net, you're not face to face.  I suspect that some of this mortgage collapse in the USA is due to online mortgages taken out by scammers on other people's homes; that's hundreds of thousands.  I can open a bank account over the net with faxed documents with no JP witness, and faxes can be much more easily forged than the  real thing.  I wouldn't be surprised if I can get credit this way also.  The hardest part, as I see it, is laundering the money without leaving a computer trail, and that's why all these spam emails offer you jobs 'processing financial transactions' for up to a grand a week.

Overall, if constant debt were an unusual state of affairs then a stolen identity would be much less useful.  You'd have to see the bank manager in person and plead your case.

In the USA there are amazing things possible with a SSN and no ID.  Here we have a 100 points rule and so on.  Even still, my wife got approved for $8,000 based on only centrelink income and a driver's licence.  She only applied for $1,500!