Tax Investigations....

[oraclesmith]

If they can see it, then they have already stolen it, plus, do you think they would care about your past spending when they got into your bank account?

Question : what do you need to apply for a mortgage ? Lots of bank statements for a start. You might only have a couple of thou in your current account, but they could take out a mortgage for maybe £200k in your name.....

[AtW]

they could take out a mortgage for maybe £200k in your name.....

I don't believe it - for started the morgage will be paid to the seller of the house, and the bank would have the house - its their risk more than mine. Scum who get into online bank accounts (way too often sadly Russian) want just one thing - your money in the account, perhaps getting you into overdraft. Making online loan application is very possible, but getting morgage is certainly not something they would do: remember it is the seller that gets the money anyway, the process is slow and it won't happen unless its certain that seller actually owns the house. And even if it happens then its 200% bank's loss, you won't have to prove much at all.

[oraclesmith]

Well it happens in the States :-

http://homes.wsj.com/buysell/mortgag...05-cullen.html

[AtW]

It is not a problem because it is the bank who will suffer loss - when scummers take money from your bank account, then you may actually lose it - you certainly won't have your money for sometime until matters get resolved, but in case with morgage it is the bank who gets stinged and unless they can prove you actually assisted in scum you won't be affected much. See the article:

"Because the money is actually stolen from the lender, identity-theft victims aren't liable to repay the lost funds and don't lose their homes. It's the lenders who are out of luck."

It seems to me that morgage operations are very lax in the USA.

[VectraMan]

I know someone caught in a similar way (don't know why, but he was self-employed so presumably it's a cash in hand thing). HMRC made him personally bankrupt, but not until he spent a couple of years working as much as possible and paying back 75% of what he owed. He needn't have made the effort.