At what point does using a fake name turn into a felony?
How about creating an email address using a pseudonym?
Or does it have to involve money? If someone uses a fake name to order a sex toy delivered (out of embarrassment) is that wire fraud?
How about creating an email address using a pseudonym?
Or does it have to involve money? If someone uses a fake name to order a sex toy delivered (out of embarrassment) is that wire fraud?
My understanding is that using an alias to commit a fraud is an aggravating factor, like it means you went out of your way to deliberately hide your crime. It'd be awfully hard to convince a court that you made an honest mistake if you lied about your identity during the process.
So if you are doing things purely for anonymity it's OK, but if you are registering many email addresses to overcome email service's per account free storage limit, or if you order sex toy delivery for new identity to get a first buyer's discount multiple times, then as I understand that could be a wire fraud.