Re: Getting a new identity & a new credit history

No, but they may amount to a different offence.

Obtaining services by deception, Theft Act 1978, as amended by the Theft Act 1996. Actually, you'd need to get a loan for it to be an offence, so merely having a bank account and keeping it in credit wouldn't break the law even if you lied to get it. But if you obtain a credit card, or go overdrawn on a current account, then it's a breach of the law if you used deception to obtain the card or account.

Mark

Whether it is fraud will turn on whether the misrepresentation or the failure to disclose was made with the intention of causing a loss, and that will depend on the particular facts. I could cobble together one set of facts in which it would be fraud and another in which it would not.

Here Dave Tyke ran up £60,000 to a credit card company which he can not afford to repay. Dave now goes to a bank and tells them his name is something else. It is unclear to me that this false representation to the bank is made with the intention of causing a loss to either the credit card company or the bank, but a tryer of facts may come to a different judgment.

Tony

Replaced by obtaining services dishonestly. See my comments elsewhere about the necessary elements of that offence. but they involve only the payment for those obtained services.

To misrepresent and cause a loss in not the same as to misrepresent in order to cause a loss.

Tony

Agreed, and moreover he's not in fact making a false representation to the bank by telling him his name is something else (he is genuinely changing his name, so his name will actually *be* something else). The false representation would be claiming that he's not held a UK bank account before, etc, and inventing a foreign history.

What the OP is suggesting goes beyond just telling the bank something. He is suggesting losing his former identity and having his old slate wiped clean by, not to put too fine a point on it, "disappearing" (doing a runner, but with smoke and mirrors rather than leg work). It is *that* which would constitute fraudulently depriving his existing creditors of their dosh.

Wouldn't you agree?

Would that be fraudulently depriving his current creditors of their money? He has said he can't afford to pay them back anyway, so assuming he is not hiding assets or hiding ability to pay then whether he changes his name or not makes no difference to his repayment. Surely, either way, he is simply breaching his contract with the creditor? If he took out the credit knowing he couldn't repay it and then changed his name to deliberately avoid repayment then sure that would be fraud, but I'm not sure the OP's situation as described constitutes a fraud at all.

Well, there's a little more to it than that. Some years ago there was an aricle in the FT called something like "how to disappear". Conclusion was that it was: a.) expensive to do properly b.) took time to establish your alternate persona _before_ you make the break c.) required you to break contact with all your friends and family

The upshot is, that if all you're trying to do is wriggle out from paying your debts, then an IVA is possibly cheaper/easier and means you won't spend the rest of your life worrying that someone's found you. Your credit rating will be completely non-existent in either case so that balances out.

Usual disclaimers apply: IANAFC, don't lend someone money for plastic surgery, etc.

Pete

the fact he's *said* it doesnt constitute an actual fact as to whether he could pay them *something* as decided by a court (at last resort)

I thought that loophole was plugged years ago?

Whoops, I didn't know I was too early.

Tony

Er, no. Bob's no longer your uncle. It'll be George who's your uncle now.

In message , Tumbleweed writes

Well no, but if we are going to base our answers here on assumptions that the poster is not telling us the truth then we may as well do away with original posts and just endlessly make up answers that we want to give to non-existent circumstances. Oh... sorry... I forgot that is what most here do anyway.

Not by much :-)

And I suspect the new wording is precisely to prevent the sort of arguments we have been having here from occurring in court.

At 17:59:28 on 02/01/2007, Peter Lynch delighted uk.legal by announcing:

Untrue. It will be non-existent if he has a completely new identity. If he goes for an IVA then his credit record will most certainly exist.

How?

It's more usual to use the b/c of someone who emigrated and is unlikely to return to the UK. Although nowadays that would be considered identity theft. What with all the post 9 Sept malarkey, it would be difficult to travel by air using your false identity.

He hasn't said he can't afford to pay *any* of it back *ever*. Indeed, the fact that he is considering starting a new life, which will presumably be "viable" in the sense of establishing a reasonable stream of income, means that he would be able to pay rather more than none of it. Deliberately closing that door is therefore clear intent to defraud.

Surely he's not *that* bad. I'm assuming that when he took out the credit he had every intention of paying the piper.

There's no doubt in my mind that it does.

At 13:14:57 on 03/01/2007, Ronald Raygun delighted uk.legal by announcing:

One would hope they at least peruse the register of deaths as part of their checks.

However, I note that the UKPA states that "Birth certificates are not conclusive proof of identity, and we may therefore ask you to provide additional evidence to establish your identity, for example a driving licence, medical card, National Insurance card or Benefit book."

DVLA will check your ID with IPS if you have a 'digital' passport. Otherwise they require a full passport and/or birth certificate (or other docs if you're not British).

For a NI number DWP may require a passport, birth certificate, driving licence (or other docs).

Bit circular, isn't it, and the common underlying document is?

"Peter Lynch" wrote

What happened on 9 Sept?

Why should they? The fact that someone has died does not contradict the fact that someone was born. A birth certificate doesn't of itself create an identity, after all, it is merely documentary evidence of the fact that a certain individual's alleged birth was reported by someone along with details of when, where, and who the parents were. Entitlement to have a birth certificate in one's possession or to have one issued is not restricted to the individual therein described.

Which makes it all the more surprising that it plays as big a role in establishing someone's identity as it does. It merely "proves" (if that) that an individual of that name was born at the time and place stated. It doesn't prove that a person having it, and claiming to be that person, is that person. It only proves that if he isn't, then he's up to no good.

Exactly. Daft, isn't it?