Fraud insurance in my name

[BertBert]

Admiral wrote to me to tell me they had cancelled my insurance for one of a number of bad reasons. Clearly having ones insurance cancelled is a bad thing. However on investigating with them it was a new policy that was taken out in my name and address which they cancelled and refunded the money whence it came (not from me). They assured me that it wasn't a canx I needed to declare and nothing else to do as far as they were concerned.

I had seen a few soft searches last week and thought it was strange, but the accompanying words from the monitoring agency were reassuring that they happen a lot and are not a problem.

Well clearly there was a problem! I'm looking for advice. I have been researching, going on to Equifax, Experian etc. Logged the Cifas marker.

There were 18 soft insurance quotation searches done one day last week - probably from a comparison site. What should I do? contact each ins co and ask if a policy was taken out? All ideas welcome.

And a supplementary, when you look at the searches through different agencies (Experian,. Eqqifax, Credit Karma etc), they all have different lists. Credit Karma had 9, Experian listed the 18. How does that work and how do you keep track. Anywhere I can go to definitively actually see all searches?

Cheers

[alscar]

BertBert said:

Admiral wrote to me to tell me they had cancelled my insurance for one of a number of bad reasons. Clearly having ones insurance cancelled is a bad thing. However on investigating with them it was a new policy that was taken out in my name and address which they cancelled and refunded the money whence it came (not from me). They assured me that it wasn't a canx I needed to declare and nothing else to do as far as they were concerned.

I had seen a few soft searches last week and thought it was strange, but the accompanying words from the monitoring agency were reassuring that they happen a lot and are not a problem.

Well clearly there was a problem! I'm looking for advice. I have been researching, going on to Equifax, Experian etc. Logged the Cifas marker.

There were 18 soft insurance quotation searches done one day last week - probably from a comparison site. What should I do? contact each ins co and ask if a policy was taken out? All ideas welcome.

And a supplementary, when you look at the searches through different agencies (Experian,. Eqqifax, Credit Karma etc), they all have different lists. Credit Karma had 9, Experian listed the 18. How does that work and how do you keep track. Anywhere I can go to definitively actually see all searches?

Cheers

I experienced something similar a few years ago when I received 6 or so letters from different Insurance companies all telling me that policies in my name had been issued and cancelled flat due to various reasons. I called each one and said they couldn't have been cancelled as I hadn't taken them out and they agreed the word was wrong. I also received cancellation from a premium finance company on one of the false policies which I also called them on.
I reported each instance on Action fraud's website which appeared a complete waste of time although I did get a call from one of their staff sometime later.
I also paid £30 to CIFAS to have 2 years extra "checks " involved should finance checks be enquired of subsequently.
I was the victim of so called ghost broking fraud but no point in reporting to the police as ID theft appears not to be viewed as a crime.
Insurers do have a couple of systems that help to avoid this and the fact that we both were contacted shows this works.
It is a little distressing and indeed irritating but ultimately nothing more was heard and nothing else untoward happened.
I think that's a fair summary but if you have any other questions shout.

[alscar]

Forgot to add that I also now check my credit score every 6 months through the service offered by my bank.

[BertBert]

Thanks, that's very helpful. I check daily at the moment!
Credit Karms has alerted me 3 times today for the Cifas marker being added, feels reassuring other than none of the services gave me the same info on soft searches. Monitoring feels like a pretty random game to me atm!

[alscar]

From the one call I did get from AF I am led to believe that following the initial spate of attempt of taking out false policies if a few weeks / months then elapse with nothing further being received you “ should “ be in the clear so to speak.
I did keep the letters received as well just in case.
Hopefully you won’t need to keep checking credit daily.

[agtlaw]

BertBert said:

There were 18 soft insurance quotation searches done one day last week - probably from a comparison site. What should I do? contact each ins co and ask if a policy was taken out? All ideas welcome.

And a supplementary, when you look at the searches through different agencies (Experian,. Eqqifax, Credit Karma etc), they all have different lists. Credit Karma had 9, Experian listed the 18. How does that work and how do you keep track. Anywhere I can go to definitively actually see all searches?

Cheers

Have you ever used a comparison site? Their terms may allow future searches. Ask them to delete your data?

There are three UK credit reference agencies:

- Experian
- Equifax
- TransUnion

The 'lists' are different because an insurer, bank, lender, etc., would not necessarily use all three.

Credit Karma, mentioned above, uses data from TransUnion.

[Dog Star]

I had this a few years ago - Direct Line, strange policy appeared in the post for an RX8 with me showing me as a graphics designer and a load of other inaccurate details. There was also a named driver on the policy.

Then the parking tickets and speeding fines started.

Virtual cigar if you can tell me
- the city where all the fines (offences) came from
- anything about the named driver on the policy
(Stereotypes exist for a reason)

It was actually unbelievably easy to sort - Direct Line had set up the policy which then bounced because the card details weren t legit (can t remember exactly) and the chap I spoke to at the ticket office (nearest one to me in Hyde) was brilliant - he just cancelled the lot and put some sort of intercept on to stop the rest - there were more evidently. Never heard more about it.

ETA - the way the policy had been done meant that a policy existed, at least on paper, for a week or so before the insco caught on and cancelled it, by which time the scrote would just rinse and repeat.

ETA2: the car was not registered to its new keeper, hence all the tickets being issued going to myself

Edited by Dog Star on Tuesday 25th August 16:19

[Sheepshanks]

Dog Star said:

……and the chap I spoke to at the ticket office (nearest one to me in Hyde) was brilliant - he just cancelled the lot and put some sort of intercept on to stop the rest - there were more evidently. Never heard more about it.

When similar happened to me we were woken up in the middle of the night by the police. They didn’t seem bothered - just accepted I wasn’t the person they were looking for and toddled off.

I did get a couple of notices after that and sent them back with covering letters.

[BertBert]

agtlaw said:

Have you ever used a comparison site? Their terms may allow future searches. Ask them to delete your data?

There are three UK credit reference agencies:

- Experian
- Equifax
- TransUnion

The 'lists' are different because an insurer, bank, lender, etc., would not necessarily use all three.

Credit Karma, mentioned above, uses data from TransUnion.

Thanks agtlaw. I don't tend to use comparison sites, but may have used one in the distant past. Understanding that the three reference agencies essentially do their own thing is interesting as it now makes more sense. I hadn't really thought it through, but assumed that "my credit record" was one thing. But if it's three seperate things now makes it clearer and the activity worse. Each of the three has different insurance soft searches over three days last week. It looks like Equifax had a comparison website hit on the 18th with 18 searches. So all told there are close to 30 searches.

Far too many to follow up on individually. And looking at the experience posted on here, probably not that fruitful, I'll just keep an eye out for anything else that happens. I am monitoring all three Experian and Equifax direct and TransUnio through credit karma.

It does make me curious how the whole credit reference thing is architected, but I suspect it's pretty complex and not in any way available to the public!

[Terminator X]

AF is a waste of time, they don't look at anything below £100k of fraud.

TX.

Edit - what is the actual fraud here? What do these people gain?

Edited by Terminator X on Wednesday 26th August 17:49

[alscar]

If it’s of the ghost broking variety then the fraudsters gain the money they charge for a fake insurance policy.

[BertBert]

Yes i did wonder what they gain. The money paid for the insurance went back to the account it came from. So a money laundering fail.

[FilH]

Dog Star said:

Virtual cigar if you can tell me
- the city where all the fines (offences) came from
- anything about the named driver on the policy
(Stereotypes exist for a reason)

Ill go with a Muhammad from Bradford.