OT pet hates

Suppose if the PDF is editable, someone could alter the name etc and use as proof of identity?

I detest the sort of mags that have colours that bleed on to your fingers as you grip the thing.

I agree. I gave up subscribing to New Scientist partly because it persisted in printing some pages in black on a dark blue background, or white on yellow, or something equally daft and illegible. Also because most of their articles were written by "science writers" who hadn't much of a clue, instead of by real scientists as used to be the case.

Likewise Car magazine many years ago. When I still had young eyes. They insisted on printing text across photographs. Ruining the pic and often making some of the text impossible to read.

You can't really lock a PDF, the "lock" is just a file attribute that software can ignore if it wants to. Imagine the fun the council helpline would have if they sent out encrypted documents to Joe Public.

So it might reveal a fraud, oh dear. Or do you mean that a person alone might be more vulnerable? It's a bit of a long shot, are people out there really searching for council tax bills that reveal that someone is single?

It's surely trivial to do anyway, take any old bank statement, council bill or whatever and modify the address to match what you want. The use of utility bills etc. as proof of address is so full of holes that it's ludicrous. Unless of course the organisation asking for the proof actually *checks* with the originator of the bill but I suspect that's very unlikely.

Doesnt even have to be editable just scan in, and cut and paste using scissors and glue re-scan or photograph job done.

Thank God ours hasn't! I NEED to have some sort of paper bill as part of identification and checks when I move jobs!

SteveW

Elderly person living alone - a ripe target for fraud or theft.

Could also reveal discounts for other reasons - being a vulnerable adult; 2nd home required for work and therefore often empty; mental illness; dementia; member or family of member of international organisations involved in defence and therefore a target.

Or as email can be remotely accessed - maybe revealing the location of a woman and her children in hiding from a dangerous and abusive ex.

SteveW

Yes, OK, these might be valid reasons for not wanting it shown. However I still think it very unlikely (like vanishingly unlikely) that anyone would be able to *find* something like this on purpose. Most 'computer fraud' occurs due to trivial shoulder surfing and such. How are you suggesting that the 'wrong person' might find a (relevant to them) council tax bill in an E-Mail?

You can't tell the difference on a printout between text which is photographed and printed direct?

Some can some can't and it depends on how closely you look. My solicitor wouldn't accept an email or a fax of a document as proof , so I had to take the docunments to the solicitor such documents as proof of address and passport. Now why won;t they accept a photocopy of my passport think about it.

I was pretty much agreeing with you, that most of the information on a council tax bill is public knowledge.

yes, I've moved pretty much everything else to be online, but will keep the council tax as paper ... even if it means I miss out the chance to "win" a free month of council tax if I go paperless.

How come parish councils can put in an increase *way* above the 3% ?

Fraud is still fraud.

During a discussion of the precept at the last parish council meeting: 'we may be capped in future perhaps we should increase the precept while we still can.'

Oh, I see! :-)

How would they know that? It's got the 2nd home surcharge, but that doesn't tell you how much it's used.

(It annoyed the **** out of me that when I got on my bike & looked for work I was charged a surcharge on my bedsit until we could move here properly)

Andy