Q: Hello, my boyfriend temporally lives in Frankfurt Germany and he is having issues with his online bank.
He is a surgeon for WHO in Frankfurt Germany and having issues with his online bank. His online bank put his account under dormant. He needs to access his account but also having issues with server there. He asked me if I can access his account and gave me the password and account number. My question is can I access to his account legally?
A: If you are acting with the permission of the account holder, at his direction, then you are not committing any crime. If the bank has an internal policy regarding its account customers granting others access to their online accounts, then that is a civil contractual matter between the bank and your boyfriend. If this boyfriend is a fraudster, someone you met online or by phone only, and has access to someone else's bank accounts (through stolen identity, emails and PINs, etc.) and you do not really know him that well, then there is a risk he is not who he claims to be and he is manipulating you to commit a crime on his behalf and drain some unsuspecting person of their money and send it to him, leaving all the internet and IP address trail leading to you, who will then be visited by detectives and who will not believe you were not in on the scam. That scenario would place you in jeopardy of felony prosecution and jail, not to mention a fortune in legal defense bills, so if there is anything you are not totally sure about regarding this boyfriend of yours, I would question why he cannot directly contact the bank himself and resolve the issue.
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