Scam Alert On Bank Accounts

Please check your bank accounts for any fraudulent direct debits to any of the following companies:

Cornhill
Zurich
Halifax
BMid Essentials
eSure
Liverpool Vic
Tesco Finance

This list will be added to as things progress.
The debits are being set up remotely using only bank sort code and account numbers.
If this happens to you, please contact the police as soon as you have cancelled the debits.

I check my accounts online often but I don't always check EVERYTHING, so I managed to miss the fact that someone had fraudulently set up two direct debits on MY business account. I was completely unaware of this until Zurich Insurance debited almost £60 for a car insurance policy. I do not own a car! I checked my DDs and SOs and spotted a second direct debit set up for Halifax, the reference number coinciding with their MORtgage department (MOR/reference numbers). I do not own a house! I have no direct debits paid from my business account.

The above took place within the past month and the companies concerned have said that these details were set up via the correct mandates and they are in my name and my address. The only bit that was wrong was the fact they were in my personal name and they had marital status wrong, plus the account has a trading name that had been omitted. However, the bank proceeded and allowed the direct debits to be paid! All of this is currently part of a fraud investigation and I had considered the posibility of banking error via HBOS, who had processed the debits and the missing cash was refunded immediately on reporting the fraud. I've left it in the hands of the police & relevant fraud departments.

HOWEVER... since then, the exact same thing has happened to 10 of us - completely different banks and building societies involved! One person that we know of has also had a credit card taken out in their name. We have established the common denominator - we all offer BACS/Bank Transfer as a method of payment for goods/business services.

PLEASE - could anyone reading this who accepts BACS/BANK TRANSFERS check your accounts for direct debits and make sure any that you did not authorise or that have supposed to have expired get cancelled and deleted from your accounts.

The police HAVE traced the car that I am supposedly insuring - it has no current registered keeper and is, at present, in trade! These cars exist!

Anyone with any information relating to the above or anything similar, please post so everyone can be made more fully aware of what is going on. Someone, somewhere IS making money out of this crackpot scheme somehow and I, for one, won't rest easy until the culprit is found.

Also - be aware of phishing emails alleging to be on behalf of HMRC (tax office).