Too Easy to Get a Fraudulent Card

Banks_Are_Still_Stupid

My mother-in-law is an 89 year old widow and she recently received two credit cards in the same post that she had not applied for. They were nearly identical Nat West and RBS cards, each with £20,000 credit limit. The letters also showed several transfers of money out of about £18,000 in total on each card, which appeared to have been applied for and approved at the time of application.

We were advised by the banks' Faud Department that they had been applied for using their automated on-line process. This only requires name, address and dob and we were told this was likely to have come from the public domain Electoral Register. When asked whether that meant they were inundated with faudulent applications, we got the reply that yes, there were a lot!

Furthermore, we were expected to check with the credit agencies whether there was any other fraudulent activity. Why should we go to the trouble/expense of this on behalf of disgracefully lax banks?

Come to think of it why should the public have the same repeated trouble/expense to monitor that the three agencies have recorded their credit history accurately?

Isn't the onus being put on us to make up for what is lacking in the financial system?

I think by law there should be one central database which is free of charge and easy to check.

takman

Well you can check two of the credit agencies for free using Clearscore and Noddle. Then you can check Experian for £2 by requesting a statutory report. So its not really a massive expense and all very easy to do.

I always opt out of the public electoral roll so this is something you could consider doing if your worried about this data being public.

I don't think a central database would work because it would end up being a monopoly which would mean no competition to keep prices low.

Ben8282

The OP is almost impossible to take seriously.
A credit card application requires more than Name, Address and date of birth! (by the way, the electoral roll does not show date of birth),
The credit limits allegedly given are far to high for initial credit limits and the chances of the same banking group approving 2 new cards around the same time and giving a £20,000 credit limit on each defies belief.
You also refer to 'several' transfers of money from the credit cards at the time of application totalling £36,000. Natwest do not offer money transfers on their new cards ......
The letters must say who these several transfers of money were paid to ....

National_Debtline

Hi there,


Situations like this are understandably stressful and I can see why you could feel 'put out' to have to go checking things like credit files when you (or your mother-in-law to be more precise) haven't made a mistake. Realistically you are under no obligation to check anything but as takman said - it is all very straight forward and cheap. In the long run it is in your mother-in-law's interest to check that no one else has tried to use her details without her permission, otherwise these problems could keep arising.


Make sure you report the matter to Action Fraud and get a reference number off them and then complain to the banks concerned. If this has happened more than once before then I would suggest you raise that too and express your concerns that this may happen again. Your mother-in-law could then speak to the credit agencies to request more rigorous checks are done for any future credit applications (normally known as CIFAS). This won't cause her any issues if she wanted to apply for anything but hopefully should stop this happening again. Good luck,


Laura
@natdebtline

Banks_Are_Still_Stupid

I too could scarcely believe it when I saw the credit cards with their high limits, especially as they arrrived in the same post at my mother-in-law's house along with the two letters of PIN notifications (should be in a separate post) and details of the huge transfers out before the card had been sent, let alone activated.
We took them to the local NatWest branch and the person who dealt with us was unsurprised, saying it often happened and blaming the automated online application process.
A couple of days later the Fraud department (seems to be one department for both banks) phoned my mother-in-law to tell her to do a CRA check. This she can't do, as she has no Internet like most people of her generation. She asked if I could talk to the Fraud dept on her behalf and that is when I was specifically told about only needing the basic information from the Electoral Register to make the application. I expressed surprise and indignation at this and was met with a sheepish response.
Prompted by comments here, I have looked at the NatWest online application process and it is clear they need more than just the Electoral Register info. I have also taken on board that the high credit limit and the immediate granting of substantial transfers out do not look like standard procedure. There is something more going on here and I have been given the brush-off by the bank. I am going to make a complaint to try to get to the bottom of it.
Thanks for the information about CRA checks. I guess we we should check it out, although it will have to wait until my mother-in-law next visits us for her to be able do it - she lives quite a long way away. This will only be a snapshot. I have seen recommendations for annual repeats but much can happen in a year.
I still don't like the way the onus has been shifted on to the public, both to check against fraud resulting from lax lending procedures, and to monitor credit files against cavalier misinformation from banks, utilities etc.
Action Fraud do not seem to have a category in the Report Fraud section of their website for this type of fraud. CIFAS costs £20 every 2 years to request the level of scrutiny which should be standard. I don't think the public is being well served the way things are.