How easy is to start a 'new' identity?

If you need to ask those questions on here, then what you have in mind probably isnt a very good idea.

My mind wanders in some pretty strange directions- but creating a new identity has never been one of them. Then again maybe I have- when I stopped being James and became Nebulous!

I know nothing about this, but I'm pretty confident anyone who does know won't respond to you. Anyone who does respond to you will be offering third hand information or information made up on the spot.

Neb

Well, you are certainly entitled to change your name in this country - no need for a deed poll. So, if you did that and moved house a couple of times, any debt collection agencies (for example) would find it tough to catch up with you.

You can perfectly legally hand in your passport and driving licence and have them re-issued in your new name.

Does that help at all?

I'm offering third hand information made up on the spot here.

You could tell the electricity / gas / telephone suppliers your new name, and when they send you a bill, use that as ID to get a bank account.

Sorry- I asked for that.

I think banks look for you to prove identity and address. A bill generally only proves address. You need a birth certificate, driving licence or passport in addition to bills. Then again he has a friend in the Nat West.

Neb

I have two identities - OK so they share the same first name but the surnames are different. All to do with the need to separate my life after tracing my biological parents.

I carry two groups of plastic cards - but travel on just one passport. Some utility bills are in the second name. The passport is the one thing I have never thought about dealing with in the UK. I was thinking a few years ago of getting a passport from some small pacific island - but if I recall correctly the costs were IRO USD 5K.

The best advice I can offer is to do the process slowly, over many years.

GB and Jonathan Bryce have given good advice, so 2 / 4 ain't bad. But yes, all that is quite possible and alarmingly easy to arrange. In fact, it is often easier to do all that, than to try and get a bank account with a poor but legit credit history.

The system in this country is perfect for fraudsters to abuse and it's getting better for them all the time. Online banking, bank credit scoring and credit references like Equifax make it all very easy.

You can put any old name on the "voters roll".

BT will open new accounts without proof of ID, they simply look for adverse info via credit ref at the address where the app is made. If none is found, the account will be opened. Same goes for the lecky and gas. Water and council tax will accept any name, including Micky Mouse if you insist. With bills from all those utilities, you have a new ID.

Depends how serious the person "looking" is. If it was the Police etc., then yes. But even they would have to be looking specifically for that history. So it would probably have to be an investigation of some sort, involving CID. You're not going to be rumbled for speeding, or a parking ticket, provided you have a new licence of course.

Now you're being paranoid.

That my friend, is the truest, most honest thing Ive read today.

I have my own officially-issued death certificate. So, I can prove I'm dead, should someone check...

Unfortunately, not being a father trying to escape the clutches of the CSA, it does appear to have limited application..

You just need to take your deedpoll with current passport. Pay the £96 fee at one of the pasport offfices. just 4 hours later, walk away with your brand spaking new passport, with new name, and no mention at all of birth name.

You could move to ANY old property, ring up BT say your name is Mickey Mouse and they will send the bill out

voila - a new id.

you can only open a basic bank account at first

you have to SLOWLY build up a credit score

What's the point?

You can lie any time but can you prove it if someone checks?

Forget the friend. What's the friend going to do - get everyone reviewing the file to risk losing their job?

We're the ability to create a new ID in the above?

"We're" = we are...

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question/statement.

Am I right in thinking it's not illegal to have more than one identity, providing you are not doing so for criminal means?

Sorry, typo! Where is the ability to create a new ID in the above? There's plenty verifying address but nothing on ID.

This may support the view of you being dead but if there is conflicting evidence (eg. credit card usage) then it has limited value.

I once bought an annuity for a client who was dead. It was on special ill-health rates, and the proof of ill health that the insurance company asked for was the death certificate. It saved the client's heirs around GBP200k in Inheritance Tax. A certain amount of lateral thinking was involved, and I regard it as one of the crowning moments of my career, well certainly one of the zaniest.

Don't you mean you helped them steal 200k from the rest of us honest law abiding citizens ?