Mortgage Fraud and Identity Theft...

The most obvious way to avoid being caught up with any kind of mortgage fraud, identity theft or getting involved with any scam law firms is to constantly monitor the SRA website for alerts issued.

This can prove time consuming as the average number of alerts issued is somewhere between 15 and 20 a month. If the public and lawyers get caught out on a regular basis, this fate could also befall estate agents.

Recently, I attended a conference where Tracey Carr, Financial Crime Manager with Santander, gave an informative talk on Identity Fraud. Apparently, identity related crimes make up 65% of all confirmed fraud. There is no agreed definition of Identity Fraud', however UK Strategic threat assessment describes it as: "The creation of a false identity or the assumption of someone else's identity in order to perpetrate a criminal offence."

It is worth mentioning that there are two main types of ID fraud, one is committed by individuals, the other is committed when firms are being set up for mortgage fraud purposes. Regarding the latter, many genuine law firms check the Law Society Find a Solicitor' site, and/or use Lawyer Checker. Lawyer Checker is an online service developed to reduce uncertainty in identifying the legitimacy of the vendor conveyancer.

Over recent years it has become very easy for fraudsters to buy false documents online (P60s and driving licences) and to manufacture false income documentation. So, what actually constitutes an identity document, is it a passport, a driving licence, a bus pass Not really, there are very few documents that are considered identity documents; they include birth certificates and death certificates. However, fraudulent versions of these are also relatively easy to create.

It is considered that one of the better ID documents is a shotgun licence, partly because obtaining one will necessitate an interview and consideration of the applicant's security arrangements by the police.

There are a number of actions conveyancers (and others) can do to try to stop identity fraud:

Where ever possible meet the customer face to face
Only accept original documents
Identify high risk transactions i.e. non face to face
Don't rely solely on Electronic Identification Products, most of the fraudsters pass this
Check certifier of documents - have they really seen the customer face to face, how can you be sure
Familiarise yourself with genuine documents
Use UKPVS guide to acceptable photographs
Consider whether or not the transaction is genuine
Consider investing in ID scanners which validate documents

In addition, the SRA provides advice on its website to help prevent solicitors and conveyancers from becoming victims of scams such as identity theft and cloning.

Set out below are some examples of factors that might give rise to suspicion:

Errors in letter heading
No landline telephone numbernote that numbers beginning with 07 are mobile telephone numbers
Inconsistent telephone or fax numbers with those usually used by the firm
Telephone calls being diverted to a call-back service
A firm apparently based in serviced offices
Email addresses using generic email accountsmost law firms have addresses incorporating the name of their firm; if in doubt, check the genuine law firm's website to identify its contact email address. You may well notice a difference
Sudden appearance in your locality of a firm with no obvious connection to the area, probably not interacting with other local firms at all
A firm appearing to open a branch office a considerable distance from its head office for no obvious reason
A firm based in one part of the country supposedly having a bank account in another part of the countrythis is a strong indicator and has been seen several times
A client account apparently overseas
A strange or suspicious bank account namesuch as the account not being in the name of the law firm you are supposedly dealing with either at all or by some variation