identity theft and treatment from payday loan company

rupert1969

Good Afternoon
Please can I have some advice? My partner and I are looking to buy our first home together and want to use the Help to Buy scheme. We picked the house out, did some initial sums and decided that we could afford the repayments. We went to a mortgage company and both obtained credit reports. I have a delinquency notice against my name from a payday loan company MEM Consumer Finance.
I rang them up to ask who are you and why are you on my credit report. I was re-directed to their Investigations Department and I have since then been shocked and appalled at the way a victim has been made to feel guilty all at the same time.
They will not admit any fraud has been committed and when I asked for the account details initially refused to give them to me stating that despite the Company saying the loan was good, as I had declared it was fraud they could not give me the personal details as the details were not mine ! I said you can't have that both ways. If you say the application checked out and they are my details then you need to give me those details. They have said these will be sent but still to be received.
I made a formal complaint and now I am in a backlog which they are not obliged under their own rules to give me an answer until 12th March. I have notified the Financial Ombudsman as I have so many issues with the way this is being dealt with but they can't intervene until after the final letter has been sent despite having concerns about the way we have been treated.
How do I get this resolved quickly? They want a letter from the Police to say someone has admitted to the fraud OR has been charged/arrested for the fraud. The other alternative was a letter from my Bank confirming that it was a fraudulent application. I have spoken to my Bank and they can't confirm the application was fraudulent or not as they weren't party to the fraud. The payday loan company are the ones who have been subject to the fraud and used my identity to carry out that fraud.
I just don't know where to turn to or what to do further. 12th March isn't an option for us as that just puts us in complete limbo!
Every time I speak to MEM Consumer Finance they just fob us off and I was even rude to someone today and I've never done that ! This is what this company has reduced me to.

rizla_king

Get a crime number from https://www.actionfraud.police.uk

Tell MEM that it is for them to prove any debt against you is valid, not for you to prove it isn't. FCA rules and basic principles of law make any claim they have to the contrary complete bollucks. Would be telling them that unless they remove the default immediately you will be suing them through the courts for any loss and distress caused by their false recording on your credit reports.

trencherpilot

I haven't had experience of this, but my boss on a job a few years back had a similar problem and found out it was a tenant in a house that he'd lived in had just used the mail they sent to him. I took him about 3-4 months to sort it all out, and that was with the credit card companies being helpful. Sorry if this isn't helpful. I do know instead of calling call centres, he found the head office numbers and made a pest of himself until they folded and started helping.

Also I think they have to provide you with the original credit agreement as it's in your name, but I'm not a solicitor...

rupert1969

They have been completely and utterly intransient in the way we have been dealt with. I was rude today which I am so ashamed of as I manage a call centre so I know what it can be like with an angry person on the phone sometimes. Mem Consumer Finance have a backlog over 40 days old and will not comply with their own deadline of answering my complaint. We can't wait that long. I'm tempted just to pay the bloody thing but I'm still worried it will show up on the credit report that the damn loan had been delinquent.

sourcrates

rupert1969 wrote: »

They have been completely and utterly intransient in the way we have been dealt with. I was rude today which I am so ashamed of as I manage a call centre so I know what it can be like with an angry person on the phone sometimes. Mem Consumer Finance have a backlog over 40 days old and will not comply with their own deadline of answering my complaint. We can't wait that long. I'm tempted just to pay the bloody thing but I'm still worried it will show up on the credit report that the damn loan had been delinquent.

Hi,
Paying it will make no difference, initially to your credit report, the default entry will still be there.
Dont be too hasty, follow due process, once there final response is received you can take to the ombudsman.

Unfortunately these things take time to resolve.

How did they perpetrate the fraud ?

Do you have any clue who it could be ?

I assume they gave your identity, with a different bank account number, can that account not be traced ?
Quiet difficult to open false bank account these days.

Marktheshark

This might sound odd, but you are not the victim, they are.
Be careful of them trying to shovel it on to you, someone has defrauded them of money using false details that is their problem.
Do not give them signatures or identity documents, the onus is upon them to be diligent in making sure they are lending to who they say they are.

rupert1969

I think I know who perpetrated the fraud but proving that will be completely impossible. The money was paid in to my bank account. I thought it was repayment of money that was borrowed from me, didn't check where the money had come from. MEM Consumer Finance refused to give me any of the details on what information was provided to apply for the loan. They have carried out an initial investigation that says the loan application is still valid. They have refused to give me any information and said that as I declared it fraud it was not my information to give but subject to data Protection. I've said you can't have that both ways, saying you have my correct details and then refuse to give them. They have records of payments I've made on part of the loan but my bank checked and it's not been taken out of my account. The reason I'm so desperate to get a quick solution is we've seen a house and if we don't resolve the complaint now then we've lost the house. I can't apply for any high street moregale now because of this.

I just want them to remove all trace of the loan from my credit file full-time and was thinking of offering to settle the loan in return for the removal of all records.

I just feel that I'm being held to ransom over my credit report which is getting worse week by week the longer this delinquency notice is on my credit report.

I cried last night so much and I'm a touch cookie usually

rizla_king

Marktheshark wrote: »

This might sound odd, but you are not the victim, they are.

rupert is very much a victim in the sense that its his credit report and hope of a mortgage that are being trashed here.

rupert1969

I understand that the payday loan company are a victim of fraud but my identity has been used in that fraudulent application. However, you are right that's it's our hopes of a mortgage that have been trashed.

Marktheshark

The money was paid in to your bank account and you never noticed ?

Come off it.

Dr._Shoe

The OP has already said that he thought the money was the repayment of a debt but he shoould have noticed that it had come from a lender and not the debtor. Moreover, he is the victim of identity theft not of fraud. MEM are the victims of fraud.

They are also quite correct in not handing over any details because you could have been anybody claiming to be you and about to use those details to perpetrate more fraud.

I had a similar thing where a debt collector turned up on my doorstep to collect an unpaid mobile phone bill from someone I had never heard of. I also used to get parking tickets in my name for cars I have never owned!