Payday Loan Scam - 5,000 brits caught out

paulofessex

I have checked the forum and couldn't find this warning posted elsewhere.

5,000 Brits caught out by clever new scam

Imagine this: out of the blue, tomorrow morning, you get a letter in the post from a payday loan company asking you to repay a debt of £500. You’ve never heard of the company and you certainly never borrowed any money from them. But if you refuse to pay it, they’re going to pursue you through the courts.
You call them up and discover they’ve got a few pieces of (easily discoverable) correct information about you: your name, your postal address and your date of birth. But they have got one key piece of information wrong: your bank account number. And that’s where the money was sent.

See full article here (Source Yahoo Finance)

DCFC79

How can they go to court with no hard evidence ?

Apples2

874 replies and over 37,000 views...

This is the MCO scam... Hardly breaking news on here. Reported on here almost 2 Months ago

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2704995


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faithcecilia

Surely they would need to state when you were supposed to have had the money, and you can just provide bank statements showing you didnt?

Apples2

faithcecilia wrote: »

Surely they would need to state when you were supposed to have had the money, and you can just provide bank statements showing you didnt?

Have a read of the MCO thread I linked to.

They don't state anything, just pass your supposed debt onto a debt recovery agency for the threats to roll in.

faithcecilia

Apples2 wrote: »

Have a read of the MCO thread I linked to.

They don't state anything, just pass your supposed debt onto a debt recovery agency for the threats to roll in.

I have read it, but surely no court would enforce it if there is no evidence of having had the money. Don't get me wrong, it would be horrible to get the threatening letters etc, but ultimately I don't see what there is to worry about? I'm not trying to be clever here, I just don't understand.

peter_the_piper

I would imagine its just like the private parking companies who ""sell"" your details to a DCA regarding fictitious parking tickets. They have absolutely no powers other than asking you to cough up. As you don't owe them (or the firm which raised the original claim)then they can go and take a running jump. There's a zero chance of them taking you to any sort of court and even less than that of proving you do so there's no effect on a credit record.

molerat

This is why I love my Capital One credit card with free Equifax credit alert, I get an e-mail every time their is a search on me or change to my file which makes it more difficult for someone to pull a fast one at my expense.

mttylad

molerat wrote: »

This is why I love my Capital One credit card with free Equifax credit alert, I get an e-mail every time their is a search on me or change to my file which makes it more difficult for someone to pull a fast one at my expense.

How do you get that?
I cannot see that on the site & I have a capitol one card.

Eaglemar

molerat wrote: »

This is why I love my Capital One credit card with free Equifax credit alert, I get an e-mail every time their is a search on me or change to my file which makes it more difficult for someone to pull a fast one at my expense.

That wouldnt have saved you with this scam as the scammers were using Experian to do the check. In fact when I did an Equifax report the loan company who did the search didnt appear, thats because the 3 CRA's dont unfortunately communicate between each other. So the check the scammers make only appears on an Experian credit report.