identity fraud - Natwest acc in my name - NW does not want to know!

grumbler

I think that as P4U and, possibly, the network were the real victims of this fraud, they, not the OP, have to contact the police to be taken seriously.

innovate

Being a victim doesn't pre-req a financial loss. The OP's personal data were fraudulently used. A person's identity is priceless, a mobile phone costs the shop / the network just a few quid.

usignuolo

According to the Met Police, yes it does.

usignuolo

well I think I have got to the bottom of how it is done. The scammer buys a phone and plan on line using a name and address with a clean credit record, a valid bank branch code and a self checking bank account number which could potentially be that of the person whose identity is being used (except it is not). I say could potentially be because there is no actual cross checking done between any of these pieces of information. This cross checking cannot be done without banks giving the phone seller access to the banks systems. This does not happen.

So all the retailer can do is verify each item individually: buyer's name and address, bank/branch code and account code. They have no way of knowing, without direct access to the bank's systems, that the account code supplied is the actual one for that branch, all they can know for certain is the account number is a valid number in the right format.

The seller will do the checks, process the order and set up a dd for the plan (or pass to another provider depending on the terms of the sale) to set up a dd. The dd goes off to BACs and iIn due course, if it is a scam, BACS will reject it as an invalid account. The plan provider will cancel the plan. The phone company will however have sent out the phone by then so by the time they start tracing it, it will have been collected by the scammer. So they will have lost a valuable phone without trace and this seems to be a widespread scam costing them a lot of money not just the odd case.

The solution would be not to despatch the phone to the customer until the seller has had confirmation from BACS that the dd has been successfully set up. I suppose they do not want to make the customer wait that long in case they lose the sale.

(Also it appears that you do not need to answer any personal questions related to your credit history if you buy on line, just provide a legit name and address with a clean credit record, (ideally an older honest person in a settled home) plus a valid bank branch sort and potentially valid account number.

The eagerness of the phone company to make the sale and the honesty of the chosen "customer" do the rest. Its a very elegant scam.

brewerdave

As an aside ,I heard of a variation on this s.c.a.m recently. The postman was about to deliver a signed for parcel to a house when he was approached by a man who was in a car parked on the drive -who said he would take delivery.Fortunately the postman knew the occupants by sight, so refused to let the parcel go; he knocked at the house whereupon the car drove off...no-one was in ,which the fraudster obviously knew, and had gambled on an "irregular" postie.:mad: