Being chased for a debt that isn't mine

goatlady

Hi - Can anyone help please?
Last year we moved to France and about 3 months after we left the UK we discovered that someone was applying for credit cards in my husbands name, Most compaines spotted the applications were fraudulent and refused the cards - smoe didn't. We reported the situation to the police & got a crime number, contacted Experian & CIFAs etc etc. We thought that was that. Last week our old neighbour told us she had a letter addressed to our old UK address, from a debt collector. They are chasing £1700+ on behalf of Vodaphone. This has absolutely nothing to do with us. My husband rang Vodaphone - not interested. He rang the debt collector who said they would suspend action & investigate. We followed up with written confirmation that the debt is not my husbands and quoted the crime number. Today the debt collector rang us - chasing the debt. Allegedly they do not have our letter - sent a week ago by the French equivalent of recorded delivery & usually very efficient & fast.
I have a horrible feeling this is going to get nasty! I have searched & searched the net for information on our rights etc but found none. Loads on prevention or what to do if you think you may be the victim of ID theft but zilch on what to do if you are chased for a debt that results. Cab aanyone help?
Many thanks

never-in-doubt

Hiya

Send this to Vodafone - 15. Prove it Letter

MrsTinks

At the end of the day you can prove when you moved to France - and as that date will be before the date the new contract was taken out then there is nothing the DCA can do. If there is a note on your Ohs credit file for the vodafone debt then contest it through the reference agency and provide your crime number again.
As well as sending the "prove it" letter above

DarkConvict

Vodafone cannot say they are not interested, all matters of crime (fraud) should be investigated. Whilst you cannot usually speak to the fraud team yourself (Jon 01 and the mobile forums can vouch for that), you will have to ask the customer services team to log it as fraud for investigation as you can prove you were not in the country, along with other fraudulent applications and the police involved it is upto them to sort it out. It is there loss they allowed the system to process it whilst other systems caught the fraud.

End of the day, OFT guidelines state you cant chase a third party that is not liable, it is not your debt so you can be forced to pay it.

Vodafone

Hi goatlady,

This certainly does'nt sound quite right, I would like to investigate this situation further and help to restore your faith in our company.

As this is an account specific query, I will need further details to be able to look into it for you, could you please contact me via this link -

Contact us

(Please quote the code WRT135 in the subject line and provide a link to this thread in the message body.)
I am certain that we can resolve this for you.

Thanks
Sukhi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK

swingofthings

Good thread - thanks for starting this one up ...

I have a similar problem to the OP. The OH got a letter last week from a debt collection company (Connect I think - part of Mackenzie Hall I think) stating she had a 3 grand debt on a barclaycard from 1997. Trouble is she has never had a barclaycard. Apparently it was taken out in 1997 in her maiden name at her old address ... payments were made until 1998.

So I was going to use the template mentioned above as I would be interested to see the proof that they have as she has never had a Barclaycard.

Also, we checked the OH credit history that we got last year and there is no mention of Barclaycard although there is the other credit card that she took out at around the same time.

However, I read somewhere that debt companies cannot chase after 6 years of no communications anyway? So can they even do this?

So in summary do I just send the prove it letter for starters? Or is there something else I can also do ?

Thanks ...

DarkConvict

As it not your debt, i would send the prove it letter. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11570893&postcount=2

Although as you say its over 6 years old, so regardless you could send this - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=11571227#post11571227

magpiecottage

Swingofthings you will be better off using my template letter on this thread. It will force the issue.