Fraudulent transaction on dormant account

Foggster

Hi

Hoping someone can explain to me how this has happened and what steps I should take to avoid a repeat.

Yesterday, I received a letter from K&Co (formerly Great Universal) saying that an order had been placed but had been requested to be sent to another address. It asked me to logon to my account for further details but to call the helpline if I wasnt expecting this.

As far as I know, I have never ordered from this company but I clearly had an account number. The upshot is, that an account was opened in 2008 in my then married name and on 20th January an order was placed for an high value item and delivered to London. K&co confirm that an account in 2008 was opened but that no orders have ever been placed until now. Someone had been into my account online, changed the address, placed and order and then changed the address back to mine.

Interestingly, although I reacted immediately to the letter, the company dispatched the goods yesterday!

It has been passed onto the relevant department to investigation and my details registered to an anti-fraud database.

So my questions are simply how did this happen and what steps should I take now. I have never in 6 years received any correspondence from this company, no mail shots, catalogues etc. I have no idea what email address they used to access the account. I am a member of Credit Expert but the company told me to check Equifax as that is who they use, I did this last night and it does show my account but it is dormant.

I would really appreciate any help with what I should do, it is worrying me and I feel I should change all my email addresses. I spent most of last night changing passwords on as many accounts as I could - although I have always prided myself on obscure random passwords.

Many thanks

peter_the_piper

I assume that you have not had to pay for either item.

Foggster

peter_the_piper wrote: »

I assume that you have not had to pay for either item.

Correct. In fact, my praise would be with how they handled it. No accusations but practical advice although a lot of the questions I asked she was unable to answer i.e. how did they login, what email address etc.

molerat

Don't worry about the goods, for all you know they may just be playing along with the despatch information and it will be delivered by an investigator rather than a real courier. (but knowing how these companies work maybe not, the two depts probably don't communicate)

You need to get your credit files in case there is anything else you do not know about