How to check for bank account to a persons name?

Bertrams

Hello,

I am researching a business idea I have - an ID theft protection company here in the UK targeting a specific demographic and I have some general question regarding ID theft protection.

As I understand, these companies check if there are any new bank accounts opened to your name and lets you know if there are.

My question is, what is the name of the instance to whom banks have to report for all their new clients? Essentially, could someone give me a clue - how could I check for new bank accounts opened for my service subscribers?

jamesd

The banks report to the credit reference agencies. Not all banks report to all agencies so you would probably need to check all three to do a really thorough job. A new account would initially show as a search and that would not tell you whether the account application had been accepted. After the first statement date you would know that the application was successful.

You have a great deal of competition in this area, including the completely free ability to check the account information once a month at Noddle, which uses Call Credit information. Call Credit is the least popular but perhaps cheapest to use of the three, the others being Experian and Equifax. By least popular I mean least likely to have the information reported to it and hence available to your checks.

Another potential source of information are CIFAS, a commonly used service that collects and distributes fraud reports, notably account applications that are considered to be fraudulent by the business that handled the application.

Call Credit, Experian and Equifax have the advantage of no cost access to their own databases for their fraud alerting services, which gives them a natural cost advantage over potential competitors such as yourself, even if there is some internal nominal charging done.

At least one of the three offers a service to their credit checking subscribers that can notify about status changes of some types in reports. Some credit card and perhaps other companies use this to adjust the offers and services that they provide. That adjustment could be something like a limit decrease or increase depending on other credit account changes or defaults on existing agreements or even late payments.

AJG384521

So your business idea is people pay you to check their credit reference files? I'm out.

Hazzinho

CRA's already do this.

meer53

Bertrams wrote: »

Hello,

I am researching a business idea I have - an ID theft protection company here in the UK targeting a specific demographic and I have some general question regarding ID theft protection.

As I understand, these companies check if there are any new bank accounts opened to your name and lets you know if there are.

My question is, what is the name of the instance to whom banks have to report for all their new clients? Essentially, could someone give me a clue - how could I check for new bank accounts opened for my service subscribers?

It's more likely to be credit agreements that are involved in ID theft.

Bertrams

Thanks all for your responses.

AJG384521 wrote: »

So your business idea is people pay you to check their credit reference files? I'm out.

Who said anything about charging?

There are big communities of eastern European people. They are registered in a lot of job agencies, have their passport copies there and they barely speak English. The things I have heard - agencies not paying out weeks worth of salary, money disappearing from bank accounts and false debt collectors.

Just yesterday I helped out someone - the guy doesn't speak fluent english and was looking for someone to help him sort an issue. He was receiving text messages from a debt agency. I made the call for him and turns out its to someone else's name - the number was wrong. He was happy to pay 10 pounds for my 30 minutes time knowing that its all safe for him.

And that's what I am getting at - these people can and need to be educated on the fraud activities in the UK. This can be monetized in others ways than directly charging them.

AJG384521

If the debt wasn't in his name how would you having access to his credit report help him? Phoning up someone saying you have the wrong number isn't the foundations on which to build a business.

This can be monetized in other ways than directly charging him. Are you the Godfather?

System

these people can and need to be educated on the fraud activities in the UK.

I think a lot of them already know more about it than you considering the number frauds committed by E Europeans

Bertrams

AJG384521 wrote: »

If the debt wasn't in his name how would you having access to his credit report help him? Phoning up someone saying you have the wrong number isn't the foundations on which to build a business.

This can be monetized in other ways than directly charging him. Are you the Godfather?

You are obv a troll, sorry I am out as you said before.

Bertrams

!!!!!! wrote: »

I think a lot of them already know more about it than you considering the number frauds committed by E Europeans

I don't mean the Romanians, but rather people from Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania) and polish. I meant, there are 500,000 poles in this country alone. Most of them are honest workers who come here because they make four times as much here. And they don't have any professions or something.

AJG384521

Bertrams wrote: »

You are obv a troll, sorry I am out as you said before.

It's a genuine question. How would having access to his credit report help in the example you gave?