Name / Address has been stolen used to register a new phone

[sbk1972]

Hi all,

Received a confirmation letter about my new phone account which I never requested. Someone has used my name and address and a different bank account. Was brought at Carphonewarehouse @ Acton, despite me living on the south coast. My name and address were used but a different bank account aligned to the phone account.

New account / number is registered with ID MOBILE. I contacted them to register a complaint and shutdown the account. I gave them a crime number and ID MOBILE has 45 days to investigate and if they believe there is no fraud then I will be liable for the account. I've emailed their complaints email address and have now received a reply stating that this email address has since stopped and doesn't work anymore. Lovely! Truly a Horrible company to deal with when you have an issue.

Anyway, whilst all this is going on, what else can I do to stop this situation with other phone vendors, or whatever ? I'm now worried my name / address is being used for other things. Like logging your home phone number to stop cold calls is there something similar where I can register my home address to stop all this ?

First time Ive encountered this issue so any advise would be gratefully received.

[Pothole]

"All this"? It's a single incident. What have Carphone Warehouse said about it?

[Carlson W6]

You're right to be concerned. Identity theft is big business and usually escalates. It is a massive PITA
and can take years of emails and waiting on hold to speak to various companies to sort out.

I had a similar situation with Orange mobile phones
and it took up 2 years of my life.

My advice is to join Experian and pay them their monthly retainer and then you have alerts and a strategy if this happens again.

[Pothole]

Carlson W6 said:

Y

I had a similar situation with Orange mobile phones
and it took up 2 years of my life.

When?

[Bob T]

When I got a new phone last year an issue was that the address on the phone account had to match the address on the bank account. I was just in the process of moving.

So walked from the Vodafone shop across to my local bank branch, gave them the new address, and then went back to the Vodafone shop to complete the purchase. So I suspect the other person may also have set up a bank account on your address, possibly using email comms so nothing has yet turned up in the post. Maybe worth a call to the bank if you have enough details?

[Durzel]

Keep a close eye on your credit report.

[carinaman]

That happened to a colleague of mine at least a decade ago. Seems when they moved someone used the mail sent to their previous address to take out a mobile phone contract. They found out when the debt collection agency contacted them.

[Carlson W6]

Pothole said:

hen?

I reckon about 2 years before they became EE.

I just resolved it before they changed.

It was an absolute nightmare.

It started like this-
My phone cut off. I contact them, they say I'd called to say me and the missus's phones had been stolen so they'd cut them off and sent two of the latest iPhones to an address that want mine - a tower block in Hackney.
I told them I'd been impersonated and asked:

1. Why did you send new phones to an address that wasn't mine?

2. Why did you talk to someone that didn't have my password?

Apparently if someone phoned up Orange and said they'd forgotten their password they were asked for postcode, DOB and how the bill is paid. This person imping me had that info.

The issue continued every couple of weeks for two years and Orange could not and would not put a strategy in place to prevent the caller getting access to my account whilst impersonating me. This was compounded by a rule that their fraud department would not talk direct to customers even if the customer had been the defrauded.

Eventually I worked out the only way to resolve matters and stop my phone being continually turned off was to
change the address of my contract to a friends address.
I also asked Orange to put a note on my account saying "FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY SEE NOTE" where the "password" is on the call centres operators computer screen (the first page they see when they talk to a customer and take the customers name. The note I devised then asked for 3 difficult security questions that only I'd know.

Over the next few months I tested my own security and still managed to phone Orange myself and bypass the system by saying "I've lost my password could you ask me my DOB" and they still let me into the account, the dinlows... Also at one point an operator refused to ask me the 3 security questions saying "No you've got a password- tell me the password" to which I eventually answered "Fraudulent Activity, see note" and the operator let me in, thinking that was my damn password. Not the sharpest tools in the box.

Anyway it's behind me now, but it took up two years of my life snd literally 100+ hours on hold to Orange. It was incredibly time consuming and frustrating.

Made me think, wow, if a mobile phone imp can affect me this negatively I pity the people who have had their bank account accessed.....


Edited to add: After much logical thought about how someone got my info I became convinced there was a crook working for Orange and harvesting customers details and either selling the info or doing the crime themselves. It was either that or a postman but I didn't have any postal invoices go missing so I reckon the former.

Edited by Carlson W6 on Friday 5th March 11:09

Edited by Carlson W6 on Friday 5th March 11:11

Edited by Carlson W6 on Friday 5th March 11:19

[thomson]

Contact your bank, tell them you've been a victim of fraud they will flag a CIFAS entry on your credit file, essentially giving additional checks on any new credit application. I think you can actually request this yourself with the credit bureaus but this might be a paid for service, well worth it IMHO. I'd also run credit checks urgently to see what's what too.

[rxe]

carinaman said:

That happened to a colleague of mine at least a decade ago. Seems when they moved someone used the mail sent to their previous address to take out a mobile phone contract. They found out when the debt collection agency contacted them.

This happened to me 2 years ago, I'm not sure why everyone gets so wound up about it.

I got a letter (addressed to me at my address) welcoming me to EE and hoping I liked my new iPhone. I called them to tell them that they had made a mistake. Bills arrived, eventually snotty debt collection letters arrived, I made one call to the debt collectors pointing out I wasn't the person they are after and the whole thing went away. That was over a year ago, if they appear again, they'll all go in the bin.

Other than daft companies losing money giving things to scrotes, I'm struggling to see the problem.

[SistersofPercy]

I had similar with an old tenant of the house we bought signing up for a shiny new iPhone from this address. Assume she signed up in store and took it with her. She hadn't lived at this address for ten years so not as if it was a simple error.

It was with O2 so I attempted to deal with it, but they refused to deal with me as I wasn't their customer. Spent an hour banging my head against a wall over it then came to the conclusion I'd tried and that was that.
Sent back every bill as not at this address and eventually they stopped coming.

[Electro1980]

rxe said:

carinaman said:

That happened to a colleague of mine at least a decade ago. Seems when they moved someone used the mail sent to their previous address to take out a mobile phone contract. They found out when the debt collection agency contacted them.

This happened to me 2 years ago, I'm not sure why everyone gets so wound up about it.

I got a letter (addressed to me at my address) welcoming me to EE and hoping I liked my new iPhone. I called them to tell them that they had made a mistake. Bills arrived, eventually snotty debt collection letters arrived, I made one call to the debt collectors pointing out I wasn't the person they are after and the whole thing went away. That was over a year ago, if they appear again, they'll all go in the bin.

Other than daft companies losing money giving things to scrotes, I'm struggling to see the problem.

Yep, no more hassle. Until you try to apply for a mortgage or a credit card. Or they buy something more than a phone. Or you get an NIP. Or many other things much worse than a fraudulent phone contract.

[rxe]

Electro1980 said:

Yep, no more hassle. Until you try to apply for a mortgage or a credit card. Or they buy something more than a phone. Or you get an NIP. Or many other things much worse than a fraudulent phone contract.

I've noticed no more hassle. If I got a NIP (from cloned plates presumably), then it would be one phone call/letter to the plod, and that would be the limit of my effort. Once it got to court, they would look very stupid.