Having Your ID Stolen Leads to Job Loss, Prosecution

ConfusedVorlon writes "The BBC reports on the sad case of Simon Bunce. Mr. Bunce had his identity stolen, and credit cards were made to capitalize on the theft. Some of those cards were used at sites offering child pornography, and as a result Mr. Bunce was swept up in Operation Ore. The poor man was prosecuted for his 'crime', and was eventually found innocent, but in the meantime he lost his job. It took him six months to find another at a quarter of the salary. 'The police's computer technicians take several months to examine [his computers and records], and Mr Bunce could not afford to wait to repair the damage done to his reputation. "I knew there'd been a fundamental mistake made and so I had to investigate it." Recent surveys suggest that as many as one in four Britons have been affected by it. In 2007 more than 185,000 cases of identity theft were identified by Cifas, the UK's fraud prevention service, an increase of almost 8% on 2006.'"

Comments

Strange... you missed the whole thing.

[DaedalusHKX]

The same thing occurs in big cities, where people mingle all day long, yet many buildings use intercoms to filter out "undesirables".

I prefer being able to shoot bad guys that break into my home, or trick another user of the intercom into letting them into my "home" area.

Thus I prefer to live out towards the country, where the sheriffs tend to have less "city slicker" tendencies and enforce some bullshit regulation that says I should let someone rape my woman, kill my dog, steal my property, and that I should give him the keys to my truck and feed him too, ("give him what he wants") and maybe he'll go away and not come back next time.

I was merely pointing out that a gated community where many of my friends lived was not only secured (at the obvious entry points, the roadways) by private armed security but was also secured at the "home owner" level with the residents being more than willing to bag any crook if they ever tried to break in or steal what didn't belong to them... (think cheaper than blackwater and less gung ho, but just as professional, and that's no joke either, try to meet some of these folks and observe them before passing judgment). Also, roads were maintained privately. Most of the lines were laid privately (I'm not sure on electricity or commo, but I am fairly sure that most of those people were eccentrics, not just my friends... and well off eccentrics at that.)

Balkanize all you will. The Balkans were hell before America discovered them, they will be hell long after America changes its official language to Cantonese. I should know, I was born out there.