O2 Bills but don't have phone

steveteach

Hi Yesterday two bills arrived with my daughter's first name and instead of a last name the words "& Co". The bills are for 2 phones but nobody in the family has those phones or the numbers on the bills. My daughter rang O2 and they said they will get their fraud team to investigate.

Today 2 letters from O2 arrived saying that the phones had exceeded their credit limit and would be restricted.

Can anyone enlighten me as to how a bill could be addressed to a person's first name and "& Co", would the person setting the phones up have needed a full name not just half a name and "& Co"?

Comments please?

Jon_01

Get on to O2 right away.
Sounds like someone has use the address to get phones.
You need to talk to the O2 fraud dept as soon as you can. They can get this sorted out, get the phones blocked and the bills cancelled before if gets to the collections stage.

I work in the fraud dept of one of the other networks, it looks like the kind of thing we see.

steveteach

Hi Jon 01

Yes we rang O2 when the bills arrived and they said they would inform their fraud team but as yet we have had no feedback from them.

How could somebody set up 2 phones without a surname on the bill?

ssgtsnelly

I was never an expert when i work for one of the other networks on business contracts but it sounds like it could be that.

in that case all that was needed was a purchase order from an accountant or director of said company, it was the company itself that was then credit checked not the individual, so im assuming that they could have made the surname up and it wouldnt have made a huge difference to the credit check or not. only thing thats wierd is that if it was a business account they must have a very indepth system to cover thier tracks for companies that obviously dont exist at that address.

Best just to leave the O2 fraud team to it as they will be the in best position to deal with it.

B*stards the people that do phone fraud :S

Jon_01

The fraud depts tend to have fewer staff at the weekend, they will contact you but they will need time to investigate what's happened. Their very good, I had to deal with them 3 years ago when some *&&%)^% opened an account in my mothers name 3 days after she passed away...

With out access to the account it's hard to say how they got away with it, it could be that they faked some business accounts and bills with your address on them. Dealers are only supposed to accept certain documents as 'proofs', but some of them will take just about anything if they can make a good commission out it !

I'm afraid you may never know as the data protection act prevents any network giving out the information they find.

If they haven't got back to you by Thursday, I'd call them again just to be on the safe side.

ecoelle

This is strange, we had a patment to O2 on our bank statement, neither of us have O2 phones, i rang the bank straight away and they were wonderful (Cooperative) they said it asmy partners card used online to get credit for a phone, the card had been cloned or numbers just copied i don't know which. The only shop he had used it in was a well known entertainment shop in town so i must have happened there. The bank told me that O2 are the most frequent phone company this happens with and that the people who do it usually try for under 50 pounds as this doesn't highlight as possible fraud. The bank are great though and are reimbursing us straight away. Seems odd that yours is O2 as well though!

steveteach

There is no surname on the bills, just my daughter's first name & Co, "***** & Co" how could O2 do business this way?

Also we have lived at this address for many years and are on the Electoral Roll.

Jon_01

Some dealers do their own credit checks rather than going through the networks.
I've seen some fraud accounts where it's impossible to see how they got it opened with the information that comes back.
If they had tried to open the account with the network direct, either in store or online it would never have happened.
The people doing this target the weakest part of the chain.