Loan fraud within the family

ZBoundary

Hello,
First time post so I do apologise if this has been posted (I have searched for something similar both here and elsewhere) or it's in the wrong section. I'm looking for some advice as to what to do in my rather strange scenario. I appreciate any feedback in advance.

To summarise:

My older brother has successfully applied for at least two payday loans in my name and has not paid them. As it's quite clearly fraud, how can I get these wiped off my record?

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And some context:

I'm 27 and living in London. Three years ago I used to live with my mother and my older brother in a home in the small-ish city. My brother has always has issues. At school, with money generally, girlfriends, jobs, family, police, the lot. Currently he's on bail for breaking a conjunction order filed from his ex girlfriend. He's always asked for money and as much as we've all helped, there has came a point now that we can't keep doing it anymore and have started to refuse (he actually held a full time job for over a year and was still asking).

It's worth noting that I am still registered on the electrol roll at that address, despite moving to London and moving within the city 3 times. My fault, I had actually been trying to change it for voting reasons.

Yesterday I received an email from Clear Score, the credit score reporting company to say my score had changed. This was a pleasant email since I'd been working hard to ensure I didn't miss payments and everything else to get my score up so I can eventually look at buying a house (not in London - too expensive for now!).

I noticed my score whilst above average, was still much lower than I expected. I checked through what loans, current accounts and credit cards were on file and spotted a mysterious loan for £700 under the company name "Indigo Michael". A quick search led me to another company called "SafetyNet Credit".

The first thing I did was call them to find out if a) perhaps there a finance company on behalf of someone else that I had just forgotten about (I hadn't taken any credit though) or b) why they had an account (with an account number) registered under my name.

They answered and found an account with my name but I failed security questions since my email, telephone, bank name and last 4 card digits were wrong. Strange, but then the alarm bells were ringing that someone else had used my identity.

I called my mum and she told me she had suspicions my brother was trying to do something like this under her name. I confronted him and he admitted it. So what do I do now?

Since then I've called Action Fraud who have given me a reference number and have said they're "forwarding it on". I also recalled the company who refused again to speak to me but I argued I can't verify since it's not me, that's the point. His supervisor came on and they eventually put a temporary 7 day freeze on the account whilst they investigate internally.

To make things worse my mum started to open any post she could find addressed to me and she found another letter, for another payday loan company, asking for £250 which hadn't been paid.

I only found the first once (applied in Feb 2016) since it turned up on my score a whole year later. This new one was applied in November and isn't on my score yet. There could be more!

I'm really stuck as to what to do as there may be more. I have proof it was him, I have a police reference number, but what can I do to get this cleared from my name?

Thank you

Nasqueron

If you take out a pay day loan the money needs to go into your account, you can't take a loan out in someone else's name and have the money go into your own account so can you advise what happened here?

You have to go all in on the police, the second you start wavering and talk about not prosecuting they'll take it as you trying to get out of the debt. This won't go away quickly unfortunately

DCFC79

Inform the lender what happened. You get it wiped your credit history by passing the ref number onto the lender and maybe informing the reference agency.

ZBoundary

Thank you for your replies.

I did not receive any money. The money gained from each of the loans would have been paid into his own bank account which would have the same surname but different forename.

I questioned how it can be so easy to apply without requiring identification or bank verification and their reply was simply "that's how it is nowadays, it's all online and fast".

I'll certainly be prosecuting. Should I be going to the police separately to the fraud team?

Nasqueron

Safety Net Credit says they need read only access to your internet banking and the money should be paid into the account your income is paid into so you need to provide them with your internet login details.

I am not sure how he could borrow money in your name and have the money paid into a different account given that opens them up for fraud and their site specifically says they can only lend money directly into the account linked to their site.

Does your brother perhaps have your login details and perhaps logged in and took the money out before you saw it?

ZBoundary

That's a very good point. I'll be running through their website and terms word by word and bringing it up with their fraud team. There's no way he has access to my bank details and I do my own self assessments so I monitor all incoming monies. They've clearly paid it directly to him which, as you've pointed out, goes directly against what they've said on their website.

Do you know anything about the read-only access? How is that even possible? I've never come across a situation whether it's tenancy agreements or anything whereby a lender/credit would need specific access to my bank account. I'd never allow that anyway. Printed/digital statements sure, but not access.

Nasqueron

ZBoundary wrote: »

That's a very good point. I'll be running through their website and terms word by word and bringing it up with their fraud team. There's no way he has access to my bank details and I do my own self assessments so I monitor all incoming monies. They've clearly paid it directly to him which, as you've pointed out, goes directly against what they've said on their website.

Do you know anything about the read-only access? How is that even possible? I've never come across a situation whether it's tenancy agreements or anything whereby a lender/credit would need specific access to my bank account. I'd never allow that anyway. Printed/digital statements sure, but not access.

No but nothing surprises me with pay day loan companies. They basically ask for your login details so they can check what they are lending and who they are lending to which makes it all the more odd he could take out finance in your name and somehow get the money into his own account

Gambler101

If I had a brother who did that to me he would not be walking for a few weeks.

You need to report this as fraud wit the police and take it further with the loan company.

27cool

The world's full of such charmers. Best of luck with your efforts to find out what happened and to get it put right.

Mrs_Ryan

Hate to say it but been in a similar situation- brother took loads of things out in parent's names, debt running into thousands and police said it was a civil matter and wouldn't do anything.
Parents were totally unaware until they started getting debt collectors letters- brother has same name as my dad who has dementia and doesn't have the capacity to take out credit agreements but despite this being large scale financial abuse it's been a nightmare to sort out.

Gaz83

Mrs_Ryan wrote: »

police said it was a civil matter and wouldn't do anything.

No idea how long ago this happened, but you should complain about this. This is not a civil matter.