What the reader did NOT do was take any money for themselves. What the reader did is little more than a school boy prank that I could perpetrate on anyone who has paid me by cheque. But I wouldn't gain anything by sending money to a 3rd party.
It would be a much more interesting story if the reader had managed to get through all the checks and set up a fake charity, get through the further checks and obtain a bank account with the ability to originate DDs to take the money from Clarkson. But they didn't.
Surely the full register is available for inspection at the town hall?
Are you feeling lucky? I tried this (not for myself, because it's far too late to start hiding my whereabouts, even if I wanted to) when I saw a senior Home Office official who I knew worked in their department that deals with surveillance and such things, getting off the train at a country station near mine. I made a few guesses and eventually got his address from 192.com (although perhaps they've cleaned up their act a bit these days, it used to have all sorts of amazing stuff scraped from heavens knows where).
Yes, that's odd isn't it? Fill in a form, scrawl a signature that nobody reads, and away you go. Maybe I could get my gas bill paid. I doubt Clarkson would have noticed a utility payment
;-) Well my efforts at anonymity stem from before I moved from a different part of the country 12 years ago, so I've always in effect been 'careful' for that period of time and since I've been at my current address. 192.com certainly has nothing on me! And I could probably count the number of junk phone calls I've had during that time on one hand.
As others have said, maybe I'm still in the printed Electoral Roll at the Town Hall - can't say I've ever been to look!
My justification for this route is that it eliminates one point for data release - the home computer. Knowing how my kids use and abuse the family PC, I can easily see cached details hidden in the bowels of windoze being broadcast to the ether, despite firewalls, anti-virus etc etc
16:46:24 on Tue, 8 Jan 2008, TheScullster remarked:
You might have a point with keyloggers, but the rest is largely superstition I think. Of course, as you were claming to be very risk averse, I might have expected you to take precautions (especially on a shared computer).
Another option which all my CC providers will give you but don't tell you about is a 'fixed payment' - For example I have a card which is only holding a long term debt at a very low 'life of balance' interest rate. If I let it pay off the minimum amount it would take years to pay off. By paying a fixed amount (which was actually just over the minimum when I started it) the balance is actually repaid in a fraction of the time and for far less money, and I don't really notice that a steady payment isn't oh so slowly decreasing.
Do the calculations - it really makes a huge difference. Or look here:
================ "An example helps it make sense:
Going back to John Shortovcash above, with his £3,000 debt at 17.9% interest, with minimum repayments of 2%. In the first month his minimum repayment was £60. If instead of just paying the minimums he repaid this £60 every month, the scenario would change radically.
Making minimum repayments it'd take him 41 years to pay off the debts and cost £6,300 in interest, yet repaying a fixed £60, he'd clear the in just
7 years and the interest cost would be only £2,100; a huge saving of over £4,000. Of course, if he could afford to pay even more each month, he'd be even better off."
================
This has been a public service announcement on behalf of us tightwads ;-)
Oh, is that my coat? I was just going to get that...
I suspect the bank in question, or specifically the DD processing part, is having some serious questions bandied about now.
Saying that he can't find out who did it because of the Data Protection Act is just wrong. Activating the DD was also wrong, although if his signature (also widely available due to signed photos etc.) was forged onto it then it would have been hard for them to tell.
I have also heard that the charity in question had an online DD signup which didn't follow whatever strict rules they are supposed to follow before being accepted as DD recipients, so they could have some fallout too...
All in all it's a useful exercise for *our* banking security, though. You can bet they'll look more closely at DD applications for a short while, at least.
C'mon guys, the reader was making a point. Jeremy published enough details to let a fraud be carried out; the chosen method demonstrated it was possible to get money from his account, and also that no true fraud was intended.
You don't necessarily receive one if you opt to set it up completely online. Most site that will allow you to pay by DD have two ways of setting it up - one has paper confirmation etc, but usually introduces a delay of four or five days into the transaction completing.
One of the morals of the story is not to write cheques. I've written three in the last year and a half and the target for this year is zero. In general, any supplier who still insists on this outmoded form of payment is not going to get my business. A BACS transfer works for anybody who doesn't want to accept credit cards, although those also tend to be avoided unless there is an alternative.
As far as Jeremy is concerned, it's entirely appropriate that he should make a donation to Diabetes UK. Far better that it's a direct transfer than one involving the government as middle man.
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