Identity Theft

[Alex L]

Today a letter arrived from Next confirming my £1,500 credit agreement - great but I've never applied for credit. I called the number and it appears someone has used my name, address and date of birth to open an account. Thankfully it took me about 5 minutes to close this down. The lady at Next suggested I undertook an Experian Credit Search to see whether they've applied for anything else.

The Experian search flagged that someone has applied for 2 credit cards, a personal loan and credit at Vodafone on the 27/11 and 29/11 respectively. I hopefully, after 2 hours on the phone have managed to register the Vodafone account as fraudulent even though someone went in to a physical shop with fake ID and apparently stolen credit card and walked out with a rose gold iPhone 7 128gb on a £50 a month contract - I'll wait and see whether this disappears from my credit check in the 7 days they promised. I do have the fraudulent account number and even the phone number which I've passed on to Action Fraud.

I can't see which loan or credit cards they applied for as the searches are in the name of Clearscore, a third party credit checking company.

Now I have the pain of waiting for other letters to arrive at home and convincing the lenders that this credit was all obtained fraudulently as I can only act retrospectively when I see notifications appear on my credit reports and when my score further decreases.

Annoyingly there's little I can do, I've registered with Action Fraud and have a reference and also with CIFAS which hopefully adds an extra layer of protection to any credit checks but ultimately I'll just have to ride this out until the thief gets bored - at which time they sell my details on.

Now this is pure speculation but I think this happened when my secretary was asked for my credit card details and a copy of identification to pre-authorise drinks at a big property do yesterday. I had no issue with this as I do the same every year but I suspect that someone at the hotel has passed my details on for their benefit.

So far, I've called my bank and my Amex to let them know the situation but is there anything else I can do as I feel pretty helpless at the moment?

[Alex L]

It's a massive ball ache and appears they've opened a Clearscore credit checking account using my details to view my credit score. I've managed to freeze this while they investigate that I'm the real me. In the meantime I can't sign up as it says my details are already registered to a different email address.

I've now registered with CIFAS and requested a password is put on my credit file.

[Alex L]

williaa68 said:

Very sorry to hear of your problems. When something similar happened to my wife a few years ago our home contents insurer (Hiscox) had an identify theft helpline who were very helpful. Worth checking if you have similar cover maybe?

Thanks, I'll have a look and see

[Alex L]

Perik Omo said:

A right ball-ache indeed. We have also been targeted in the last two months with a PayPal account hacked last week, spurious loan applications (only found this out by looking at my credit agency report today) and UK credit card fraudulent purchases two weeks ago. The problem we have is that we live in France although all our financials are registered to our UK address, someone has obviously got hold of details that should have gone to my UK address which is occupied currently by a trusted relation. I tried to register with CIFAS but can't as we have to be UK resident.

I've cancelled the PayPal account and had my credit cards replaced but am concerned at what else might surface over the coming weeks.

Have you logged the fraud with Action Fraud (police)? If you call the companies that are providing the loans to the fraudster and say you've been the victim of identity theft and provide your Action Fraud reference number they should register you with CIFAS for free

[Alex L]

No problem, it's been a quick learning experience for me and one I hope I don't have to repeat

Good luck

[Alex L]

V8mate said:

Will you also be taking this up with the hotel?

I've spoken to the manager of the hotel (it's a big London hotel) and given the details of the person who requested my credit card and driving licence information to Action Fraud

[Alex L]

Vodafone Fraud department just phoned to confirm that they're happy the phone and contract was taken out fraudulently, apparently they were monitoring the account before I called them. The credit search should be removed from my credit file in 7 days and they'll write off the loss of the iPhone 7. Strikes me that they're not too fussed about loss and suspect they'll not investigate any further.

[Alex L]

rich12 said:

I had this about a month ago.
4 phones
credit card with debenhams
Pay day loan (They should be shut down)
Clearscore check (They should be shut down)

It was all an absolute nightmare to sort out the pay day loan, the rest of it was all sorted quiet easily.

Credit rating took an absolute hammering all because of the pay day loan.

Action fraud were absolutely useless. To be fair, they do pretty much state they can't actually do anything!

Agree with you about Clearscore, and you're unable to contact them by phone.

I've still got to work out who one of the credit card providers is and the personal loan as details of neither are showing on my Noddle or Experian searches. The only details are that Clearscore provided the credit search.

Unfortunately Vodafone are still unwilling to tell me which branch the fraudster took out the phone contract from.

[Alex L]

Sorry to hear that, I hope you got it all sorted?

rich12 said:

Are you a director by the way?

I am a humble employee of a global organisation

[Alex L]

LotusMartin said:

Sounds like a nightmare. I had a few grand on my credit card a few years ago but that was just one source so easy to stop.

Any lessons learnt that could prevent something like this happening to others?

The problem is, I don't know how this person has got hold of my details.

All I've established is that it's incredibly easy to obtain credit with only a person's name/date of birth and address.

[Alex L]

DonkeyApple said:

Alex L said:

The problem is, I don't know how this person has got hold of my details.

All I've established is that it's incredibly easy to obtain credit with only a person's name/date of birth and address.

It's usually stolen post or a worker somewhere that has been processing your data has sold it on isn't it?

I assume so, in my case I expect the latter.

[Alex L]

I'm in the process of registering passwords with all of the main credit companies. It's frustrating that you can't do it once and they share the information.

Yesterday a bill for another mobile phone contract arrived, this time for EE. No doubt I'll be getting one from O2 and the remaining providers soon...