Van insured at my address - not me, not my van

SamDude

A letter from Adrian Flux addressed to a Mr MM (I'm only using the initials, not the full name) was received at my home address yesterday.

It is asking Mr MM to contact Adrian Flux regarding the van insurance he has taken out and paid for. They require more information from Mr MM before they will send out the policy documents.

The letter has the policy number, the van registration number (and make/model details).

However, there is no and has never been a Mr MM at my address.

I've contacted Adrian Flux and they are looking at this - they've told me not to worry about it and tear up the letter!!

I told them that it could either be an innocent mistake by Mr MM or someone is attempting to use my address for their insurance policy.

I walked up and down my street yesterday evening, just to check if the van belonged to a neighbour and the owner typo'd their address details - I didn't see the van, but this isn't conclusive...

Is this something that anyone has come across?
Would someone be able to use my address like this for some sort of insurance claim/scam?

InsideInsurance

SamDude wrote: »

Is this something that anyone has come across?
Would someone be able to use my address like this for some sort of insurance claim/scam?

It happens, people miss key their postcode and/ or house number and dont bother checking the address the system pulls up from the the PAF file.

Not all companies use AVS (address verification system) for card payments and even if they do it only checks the numerical parts of the address so if they got 1 letter wrong rather than any numbers it'd still pass AVS.

The brokers will deal with it as they see fit.

forgotmyname

They may have keyed in the wrong postcode and didnt check the road name matched.

So the house number maybe the same but the postcode is a digit out.

I had paperwork for someone that lived at the other end of my road, None of the house numbers matched, So no idea how they managed to get my number by mistake.
Not only that, my road was where they moved from and the property they moved to was in another town.
But thats Swinton for you.

They were quite shocked when i phoned the person named on the insurance to say i have all their personal details, Bank account numbers, work details, phone numbers, etc etc.

SamDude

Thanks both.

I'll sit on this and chase Adrian Flux in a few days to check that they've removed my address from the policy.

densol_2

Do NOT tear up the letter - strictly speaking it should be returned to sender.

This happened to me. First letter I opened by mistake as by coincidence I'd just had that insurance company. I called them and advised no Mr such and such ever at mine!

Then another and another letter and then a different insurance company wrote and I could see through the window " re accident dated " I wrote a formal complaint to the first insurance company as they had not acted on my first call and a letter to the other insurance co. I could otherwise see a court claim coming through and bailiffs etc knocking on my door !

The first insurance co apologised and sent me £50 to say sorry

I still have all the correspondence in case a year later bailiffs come looking for Mr such and such lol

SamDude

Thanks densol - I had no intention of destroying the letter, hence the '!!' at their instructions.

I am wary of 'questionable' mistakes or coincidences, so want to make sure this issue is resolved asap.

SuperHan

It may very well be an innocent mistake from someone who lives miles away.

When I moved, I called my insurance co to change my address. They confirmed they had and read the address back to me.

I then wanted to make some changes to the policy 3-4 months later and gave them a call. They couldn't find me on the system, and in the end turns out they had changed my address to a totally different address is Stafford rather than my address in Leeds. It wasn't even the same door number, and no numbers or letters in the postcodes were the same!

My point is, these accidents happen, so just return correspondence to sender and make a note of dates and times you call them to tell them they have the wrong details.

Robisere

This happened to me, from AA Insurance. I wound up with a total of SIX letters addressed to the same guy. I returned the first 3, sent the 4th and 5th back with a letter stating that I did not know the person and no one in the area knew of the person, and I had lived here for almost 12 years. Meanwhile, I checked locally for similar addresses and discovered a new-build group of homes in a street in town, with a similar name. I went there and found that not all the house numbers had been built, after the developer ran out of money. The house numbered same as mine, was part of an empty, overgrown plot. It was fraud, of course.

After the 6th letter I wrote to the (fairly new-broom) CE of the AA and included all the facts, including the non-existent house. I received an apology and the information from their Legal Department that it was subject to court proceedings.

I wrote back to state that, considering the fact that AA staff had not bothered to check my first 5 returns, I was glad that I was an RAC member.

My advice to anyone who receives repeated letters of this nature, is to return the first 2 or so with "Not known at this address", then check for similar mistakes. Insurance fraud costs us all money.

SamDude

I called Adrian Flux yesterday to get an update (since they hadn't called me back as I was told to expect).

I quoted the policy number and the call handler confirmed that my address details had been removed from the policy and the correct customer added.

I queried if there were any similarities between the door number or post code - but was told that due to data protection that blah blah (you know the rest).

molerat

"Due to data protection we cannot admit that we !!!!ed up"

[Deleted User]

Wow, you lot put a lot of effort into sorting out these kinds of mistakes. I just throw misdirected letters straight into the shredder most of the time. If I knew that there might be 50 quid in it I'd try complaining.