WHEN IS FRAUD NOT A CRIME?
Black Mark: When people perpetrate fraud and identity fraud from your address, it can cause problems for you as landlord or house owner, sometimes leaving a black mark against you or that address. At the very least, when people do this, it is problematic, an inconvenience and can be very worrying and yet people who find themselves in this situation have no rights of prosecution under the current law, no protection under the current law, and in fact are not even seen as victims under the current law.
Mark Akrasi
One Good Turn: I was advertising a room to rent on the Spareroom website and a young black guy phoned to inquire about it. He said his name was Mark and he was temporarily staying at a friend's house but needed to find somewhere else fairly urgently. He said his mum had recently moved back to Africa and he was pretty desperate. When he arrived he didn't even have his first week's rent but said he could give me two weeks the following week. I didn't think he would have much chance of finding anywhere else under the circumstances and so I said that was ok. We needed to get his housing benefit application sorted out and I helped him get this organised and the following week he kept his word, as promised, and did pay the two weeks owing. So far, so good!
Robbing The Blind! However, while he was here, the first problem I noticed was a pound went missing from the raffle for the blind jar. It was the only pound in the jar from the sale of the very first raffle ticket. The R.N.I.B. raffle is something we try and sell a few tickets for once or twice a year. The jar and tickets are left in the kitchen for people to help themselves. It was very difficult to prove anything and so I let it go, but it did put me on my guard a bit more. Something else strange happened a few weeks later in that I had two or three deliveries from Littlewoods' catalogue mail order company turn up addressed to names not known here. I answered the door on these occasions and explained to the courier that the deliveries were erroneous and asked if they could be returned to Littlewoods. It did make me wonder, however, again I let it go without worrying too much. And besides, by this time I also had another young black guy staying here, Sean Beau-Pierre, who I had also helped out by picking his stuff up from his old address and transporting it in my van, as he didn't have any transport himself. Again I couldn't exactly be sure who, if either, was responsible. As it turned neither of them were at all truthful and lying was a way life for both of them.
Have I Mail? By now, Mark had found a job at Cineworld, in Feltham, West London, and had been working there for a little while. He then had two weeks off work. The week he returned to work, three identical looking business letters arrived, addressed to two different female names at this address, A Miss Aston and a Ms Robson. On top of all else, and the fact that I'd never heard of these names, I decided to open one and see what it was. The letter contained a Barclaycard pin number. It was pretty obvious then that all three letters related to Barclaycard applications. Mark had left early to go to his new job and the mail had been sorted by my other lodger, who had put the three anomalous letters in with my mail. That evening I was out working and a friend of mine was using the studio at the back of the house. My friend phoned me to say that one of my lodgers was anxiously enquiring if any letters had come for him and where were they. My friend said he looked really jumpy and agitated. I asked my friend to put him on the phone and it so happened it was Mark. He had apparently made inquiries about the letters with my other lodger who had informed him that letters had arrived and that they had been put in with my mail. Of course he wanted access to them. I said to Mark that I would be back quite late and so would sort things out with him the next day.
Return To Sender: The next day he made up some story about his mum mailing him a letter but addressing it to her maiden name. When asked why would she do that, he couldn't think of an answer. However, it was obvious that none of the letters received from Barclaycard were personal letters as they were typical business envelopes. I told Mark that as there was no one living here by those names they would be returned to sender with an explanatory letter. I don't think he was very happy about that, but for me, it was a case of narrowly averting credit card fraud which could leave a significant black mark against me and or my address.
Time To Move On! I had always insisted that arrangements be made for any housing benefit rent payments to be paid by the Housing Benefit department directly to me, so as to avoid any problems. However, at this point Mark's housing benefit had been suspended. He kept telling me that he was addressing the problem and sorting out and that he would have the rent for me. However, after four or five weeks, he still hadn't done this and with all the other problems coming to a head, I said he would have to go. However, he obviously knew his run was coming to an end and had already made some arrangements. However, he had pocketed £400 or so. He left me forwarding details and a landline phone number, which he said was his Aunt's house, both of which turned out to be false. Well I never! One of the funniest things is that this guy said he was Christian and he believed in God. I did try and point out that lying and stealing were not very Christian or Godly things to do, to which he replied, "Well, nobody's perfect!" No, he certainly wasn't!