Mobile Phone Identity Theft

edphill

Hello All,

Last week someone took out five mobile phone contracts in my name with various different companies.

I have reported these to the Police on 101, Action Fraud and Each of the Networks and phone companies.

Fortunately they didn't have my bank details, just name, address and date of birth, so I haven't lost any money.

However, no one seems interested in following this up.

Police on 101 say it's not their job and to speak to Action Fraud

Action Fraud say they will log the details and it will go into the central database but they don't investigate it.

The mobile phone companies say they will carry out an 'internal investigation' but won't keep me up to date with any progress.

Now, all of these contracts were taken out in stores. Every store has CCTV and all of these companies have good enough systems to work out which till the contract was taken out at and at what time of day.

However, none of the companies say they will even look at this and all have said they aren't going to liaise with the police on this.

What is the point of CCTV if it isn't used to prevent and follow up on crime?

I know investigating every case of Identity Theft at mobile phone stores would use a lot of resources, but surely images of culprits can be uploaded to a clever computer system and very quickly faces can be picked out. Pop these on Crimewatch and you might actually catch a few of them. At the moment it seems to be a really easy crime. You just get hold of names and addresses, pop into a phone shop, get a phone and walk away leaving individuals to receive a string of worrying letters a week down the line.

I have now registered with CIFAS, so any new contracts opened in my name are subject to more stringent ID checks. But that might have a negative impact on my credit score (according to MSE - although the CIFAS website says it won't).

Surely the best thing to do would be for the government to legislate that any new contracts opened in store require at least one piece of photo ID, which would surely make this a whole lot harder for ID fraudsters?

Sorry for the long post (rant) but I am constantly amazed at how little is being done to solve such big issues!

Tony5101

As the fraud has been committed against the networks and not yourself (albeit with your details etc) - the fact that this has been reported to them as fraud, I believe will be the end of your involvement. It would only be goodwill on behalf of the network if they update you or not. I completely understand though, that this is never going to stop you from wondering what is going on, and a desire to know the outcome.
If you had suffered financial loss yourself, then you would have been the victim and updated accordingly.

edphill

What a kind response. You're definitely getting thanked!

You're absolutely right. That's the technical outcome. I don't *think* they've used my bank details because nothing has popped up yet but I'm slightly worried that these people are still toddling around with my details and no one is doing anything about it.

Apparently holding my details isn't a crime, nor is using them, unless I am made financially worse off!

Still, would be great if they could set up a simple system that requires people to provide some additional ID when setting up an account. I'm sure it's something that's on the cards for the near future but don't know if it will come straight from the mobile phone companies - who would do it first and risk customers walking away? It probably needs to be legislated like banks.

DCFC79

salmongrima wrote: »

what are the good options for protecting from identity theft.?
because identity theft is very badly affects to the many US peoples life.

This is a UK site you know ?

Yorkie1

spam reported (salmongrima)