If it hypothetically was a crime, I wonder how often it would actually get prosecuted given someone used their real ID, showing the office failed to check anything other than a name known to have dupes, and/or given they had no intent to steal something and acted with knowledge and permission of the intended recipient, showing no malicious intent. I can imagine reasons those wouldn’t be considered a valid defense, but I guess it probably depends on what office & document & law we’re talking about.

My name is X and another person also named X tells me to gather their documents from the office. Other X also signs a paper for me that says I'm allowed to do this.

I ask the office clerk: "Hi, I'm here to retreive the documents for X". He checks my ID and gives me the documents without asking for written permission from the other X.

It's deception by omission, but there is no fraud. I was legally allowed to do this. It's also a win for everyone because it avoids complications.

"with the approval of the intended recipient" makes it like breaking into someone's home with their consent

They didn't obtain anything, though.

I understood that they obtained legal documents

They retrieved those documents and gave them to the intended recipient. “Obtain” suggests something longer term.

So the story says. But what if they didn't? What if it turned out the person receiving the document from the person picking it up also wasn't the intended recipient. How would they know? And if so they'd be holding a document that they shouldn't have in the first place.

You could easily be a paw in an identity theft play like that.

No, "obtain" suggests "obtain".

There's no sense in quibbling over a vague and imprecise summary of the concept. Legally, fraud requires an injured party. In our scenario here, nobody was injured, so no fraud. Whether temporarily possessing a document to hand it to its intended recipient counts as "obtaining" is not really the pertinent question.

I suspect it may fall afoul of a law about making false statements to the government, but that's distinct from fraud.

That's obviously nonsense. Lying on a loan application is fraud, even if you don't get the loan. You're confusing criminal liability with civil liability, which does require damages.

The key term in most statutes is dishonesty.

Impersonating someone at their behest as a favour is unlikely to be dishonest.

That's debatable. If I let my friends impersonate me to use my zoo membership for free entrance, then were clearly defrauding the zoo (obviously that's not high stakes, but I dare someone to argue it's not). If one of a set of identical twins is better at math and takes all the math tests for their sibling, that's pretty clearly academic fraud, again pretty low stakes but fraud is still fraud

Key note because in case someone decides to go bad faith here, I think the gp comments use case of fraud is a positive thing (if a bit dangerous). Redefining a term just because you don't like the pejorative implications is not a positive thing, though.

There are so many things wrong with this thread. At least you make an effort, but the categorical dismissals are interesting as well and probably explain to some extent why so many hackers end up in trouble with the law.

It's pretty simple: they are deceiving the other party that the document was handed to the right person, the consequences of which range from 'meh' to spending 6 years behind bars.

Let's say this was a summons for a court case. Then the judge would believe the papers were served properly, when in fact they were never served. Permission doesn't enter into it here, it is wilful deception by two parties of a third. The same name should not normally be enough to get away with this but assuming the story is real (there are many reasons to doubt this, such as the ID matching the name, but nothing else) it all depends on who does the checking. In some cases you might not even go home without a small detour in case you are found out (for instance, because the person handing the document over is familiar with the real recipient).

So, jurisdiction matters, what that document was matters, whether the permission was granted in writing (procuration), who the counterparty was, what the value of the document was, whether the parties lived in the same state/province or country and whether or not the permission was communicated to the person passing the document to the wrong recipient (probably not) and lots of other factors besides, such as the person giving permission still evading some legal obligation, which - conveniently - the story doesn't relate (and which hinges on what that document was).

And that's before we get into the wilder options of the second person being social engineered because after all, the only way they could be sure that they were acting on behalf of the real recipient would be to check their identity, in person, and with someone who is able to do that in a way that is legally binding.

No it isn’t.

Is it? An authorized agent picked up the document. Someone with matching ID picked up the document.

Where's the crime?

I think you are massively overestimating the legal follow-through of an administration with opening hours so tight and irational they would be scadalous at a lingerie show.

Shhh, snitch