MCO Capital loan

alan_se

spyglasshill wrote: »

Do experian and equifax share information?, I have just had a credit report on myself from Equifax and there is no mention of searches by MCO or anyone else.
i have previously phone IJ and been told that I will not hear from them again. I will email and write to them and see what happens.

Hi spyglasshill/Eaglemar,

As far as I am aware they don't share data, although you will find each of your reports are quite similar. In this scam MCO seemed to have used only Experian, but I think any company can use any one of the 3 (or all of them).

3 years ago I had my identity cloned - someone used my name to put 'me' on a different electoral roll in NW London and then used that information to secure and apply for mobile phones, various credit cards and loans.

Getting it all sorted out took several months of calls and letter writing, partly because I had to deal with all 3 of the credit agencies separately, and in most cases with the fraud departments at each of the phone suppliers, credit card companies and loan companies as well. You cannot get the record of a check taken off your credit database without the authority of the company that did the checking, even if the credit agency knows it was done fraudulently.

Despite knowing the address which was used for the electoral roll registration we never got to the bottom of what reallly happened. A key reason for this was because I personally didn't lose any money, therefore technically I wasn't defrauded. The police didn't want to know and I couldn't get a CRN.

I'd like someone in authority to tell me why the onus has to be on the individual to sort out the mess that gets left behind with this type of fraud. Why can't we just make one notification, prove it's fraud and then let the credit agencies do the work in putting my records straight?

After the major exercise 3 years back I took the CIFAS Protection Registration out and also put a Notice of Correction on my Experian account. You can maybe see why I was more than a little upset by getting the MCO letters this time around!

Alan

Kota

I just phoned IJ on 0844 5765731 , and some very..odd guy answered, wasn't helpful at all. He asked what the ref was on the letter from IJ, then started asking me what my email was, the one i "applied" for the loan in o.o and then asked what my mobile was, obviously i didn't tell him a damn thing.

then he said write to them, sign it blah blah and we'll send it to the investigations team, and hung up. Not helpful...didn't solve anything, no word of the account name or anything, nothing about blocking the account either.

Does anybody know of a more successful way to block the account on IJ's end?

I checked AF's website and they have an address for IJ to send letter's too so i'll do that, seems like thats all i can do now

Prudence2_2

alan_se wrote: »

After the major exercise 3 years back I took the CIFAS Protection Registration out and also put a Notice of Correction on my Experian account. You can maybe see why I was more than a little upset by getting the MCO letters this time around!
Alan

I really feel for you Alan and I'm grateful to you for sharing your unhappy experience because you have exposed how flimsy the current protective mechanisms really are. You already have the highest level of protection available and it didn't work, because it relies on optional standards like companies being CIFAS members and checking the password statement on your credit report. If it was compulsory for lenders to contact us for a password BEFORE the CRAs divulged any information about us, that would be much better.

When I asked Experian why they allowed the MCO capital search to go ahead even though the data in the search did not match the data on their file (the 'time at current address' was completely wrong), they said it was not their responsibility to check that the data matched. This may be legally correct but it is not morally correct.

Eaglemar

Kota wrote: »

I just phoned IJ on 0844 5765731 , and some very..odd guy answered, wasn't helpful at all. He asked what the ref was on the letter from IJ, then started asking me what my email was, the one i "applied" for the loan in o.o and then asked what my mobile was, obviously i didn't tell him a damn thing.

then he said write to them, sign it blah blah and we'll send it to the investigations team, and hung up. Not helpful...didn't solve anything, no word of the account name or anything, nothing about blocking the account either.

Does anybody know of a more successful way to block the account on IJ's end?

I checked AF's website and they have an address for IJ to send letter's too so i'll do that, seems like thats all i can do now

Email them as well, 2 of us on here got replies on the same day of sending the email, and emails stand up in a court of law so the reply they send means they have accepted what you have written to them.
I also suggest threatening Police action in your email reply if they contact you again.
I had no real issues when I phoned that number but then I got a female operator so suspect she is more helpful compared to the male ones!

Oldbloke_2

spyglasshill wrote: »

Do experian and equifax share information?, I have just had a credit report on myself from Equifax and there is no mention of searches by MCO or anyone else.
i have previously phone IJ and been told that I will not hear from them again. I will email and write to them and see what happens.

I asked this question some time ago, and the answer is no, so there are 3 credit reports for each person. Look on the bright side, if you ever need credit and there's a problem with Experian, tell them to contact Equifax!

I've had CIFAS protection in the past, and found it a complete pain in the a**e if you ever need to prove your identity. Not only that, but you have to renew it yearly if you want to stay protected. To now find out that even if you have it, it really means nothing, is disappointing. I have monitoring of searches through Equifax, but was not alerted to this because MCO only used Experian....it's disgraceful that Experian put the onus on their 'customers' to check data when they're dealing with peoples lives and very revealing as to their attitude towards us...a commodity used to make money.

grahamqat

Hi Oldbloke - the problem here is that the various CRA's are competitors. It's even slightly worse in that at the moment there are 4 including National Hunter (which has an accessible and a secret non-accessible database). also Riskdisk are now moving into the market. Within a year or two there are likely to be many (10+) independent CRA's, as credit stays hard to get and ID fraud accelerates and everyone spends money checking their own credit rating. The only way to get rid of these parasites is not to use them and starve them of funds.

Robie_Nudd

I've read all the contributions here and as I have some knowledge of this case thought I'd give some insight which you all probably know anyway. Despite the conspiracy theorists, MCO aren't involved - they have merely been taken for a huge amount because of the laxness of their system.

To get a Helploan of £300 you had to fill in an on-line form. Our fraudsters, professional as they were, were already armed with a list of names/dates of birth/addresses. I cannot speculate where this came from; suffice it to say I have as yet seen nothing on this site to indicate any commonality on the thousands of names used. MCO merely checked with Experian that the people on the fraudsters list were shown at the address and had no CCJs. What ought to have alerted the authorities is that the people applying for the loans were typical Joe Public. Has anyone here ever applied for a £300 loan with a repayment in a month of £512? Of course not. Pay-day loans are a specific market for those in dire need - certainly not the sort of people who have been hit with this scam.

Finding that their clients were good risks, MCO loaned them £300. I have no idea of the scale of the fraud compared with the total turnover of MCO over the period; but I am assuming that the vast majority of their loans were made out to these hijacked identities. The fraudsters, professional people as they are, were quick to see this hole in the market and fill it with their friends, relatives and compatriots.

MCO deposited £300 in the nominated bank accounts. It will come as no surprise to everyone that the bank account names were as fictitious as the claims. Certain banks allow accounts to be opened on line without any verification at all; other banks allow multiple accounts to be opened by one individual. That's where the money went. As for the phone verifications - pay as you go phones - no subscribers; no trace - a classic sting by a well-organised group.

Of course by the time a month was up and the wheels of MCO and their collection agency IJ got moving, the fraud was already motoring. Add to this the massive amount of paperwork this has engendered; trying to find out what is real and what isn't; we are already weeks behind the perpetrators. The investigation is under way but it's going to be a long and hard road paved with paper before anyone is arrested let alone appears before a court.

grahamqat

Thanks for the input Robie. I have 2 threatening letters from MCO asking for money I dont owe. I have spent time and money trying to ensure my position doesn't get worse. The police have given me a CRN for the attempted crime on me from MCO. There is a poster on this forum who has his Dad in hospital due to stress caused by MCO. We're not that interested in excuses from MCO - we just want them wound up; the sooner the better.

bwakem

Robie_Nudd wrote: »

Our fraudsters, professional as they were, were already armed with a list of names/dates of birth/addresses. I cannot speculate where this came from

What I found interesting was the address they got for me was one a lived at 3.5yrs ago and I am not on the electoral role there. MCO obviously couldn't be bother to check that the person applying actually lived at the address given.

Anyway this points to it being quote an old database they got their hands on.

grahamqat

Hi Bwakem, could have been an old phone book or just about anything. In your case tha address was wrong, maybe the DOB too so what ID has beeen stolen - your name? This is hardly ID fraud just a system that doesn't check properly.