Internet Fraud

It appears that a tennant who moved out in Sept 2006, made three applications for credit in February 2007 (from his old address/my address for which he has now no access to, unless of course he copied a key). this seems odd to me, and if not highly illegal. I contacted the police, who despite going on about fraud costing millions, told me they where not interested and would only be interested once a crime has been comitted (ie money extracted from the credit firms). What happened to crime prevention.? Am i right to be concerned, or should i just let them get on with it (The property is now empty awaiting a sale)

Unless of course he copied a key?Are you then stating that you didn't change the locks after your tenant moved out?Well shame on you!Hard to pull the sympathy card out on that one.

This actually happened to my daughter who bought a second hand house from a decidedly shady character. The sale itself was legal , but after they moved in, the police called to the house constantly chasing up hundreds of unpaid parking fines; creditors calling to try and recover unpaid debts got quite agressive on a couple of occasions; leaving my daughter's nerves frayed, not knowing who was going to behind the knock on the door. It got so bad that she and her partner carried their passports and driving licences with them at all times. Post arrived for the former owner, day after day; they had a mobile phone number for him. but the phone was always off, and he never reacted to the messages they left. In the meantime, he continued to use THEIR address for applying for things that involved finance. Eventually the local police got to know them; the post situation was resolved by them simply scarwling on every envelope "not known at this address". After six months he had the nerve to call to them and ask them if there was any post for him! Worse still, he got very p****d off when they said they'd returned everything to sender. They did make a formal complaint to the police, but were told that since no actual crime had been committed - the police actually told my daughter that him continuing to use HER address was possibly a genuine mistake! -they could not do anything. I think you are right to be concerned. You could change the locks as a precaution; I would not trust anyone these days! there may be a perfectly legitimate explanation for this,ie, your tenant may have felt he had a better chance of being approved for credit if he had a long-standing address - but best be sure.

If the application was made in his name and only the address is different then no crime has been committed. If it was made in your name then he has fraudulently filed out a credit application and it against the law. With the rampant surge of ID theft in the US, the police won't do anything until he has actually charged to the accounts. It is just too small of a crime with the probably hundreds sitting on his desk at the moment. Plus the DA would refuse charges until an account was used. Crime Prevention is a novel idea but in these types of crimes there are simply so many that prevention is only limited to public education.

I would advise that you take your lead from the police. Do absolutely nothing. The police do nothing about fraud. They are often totally incompetent to investigate even simple frauds. There are very few deidicated officers nationally because the police do not like employing qualified people. The police were told by the government some time ago to employ people like Chartered Accountants to investigate fraud but have refused to do so.

yes, you are wrong...you should be concerned about theft and change your locks..