Identity theft - thanks Barclays

Sheep

Dealing with this for a living let me explain what may have happened.

Someone has access to your post. That could be something to do with your letter box, post man, sorting office, could be a number of reasons.

Fake documents have been used to open the account and this includes your address. The fraudsters will make small transacrions and then report the card as lost. They will then see if they can get their hands on the new card. They then repeat the process until they are convinced they have control over the post.

Then thats when the phone companies come into play. The next transactions you see on the account are 'test' ttansactions from Vodafone, EE, o2, 3, carphone warehouse etc etc. Now they know they have control of the post its mobile phone ordering time. Any phones sent in the post will be picked up by the fraudsters. Before the phone companies realise the owner of the contract is a fraudster the phone has been sold on Ebay to a poor individual who now has a 'blocked' device.

Why would a fraudster change your home landline or broadband supplier? Simple. Who has seen the new BT Broadband advert? Switch to us and receive a £125 gift card. Make sense now? Gift card taken in the post.

Barclays will never tell you what docs were used. The fraud team will have run additonal checks and closed the account. The fraudster will probably have moved on to another address by now.

Please note I know nothing about your individual situation and only giving my thoughts on the sort of fraud going on.

Lorian

I don't think you said if ALL of the inbound mail is in the same name?

If it is - is it a distinctive enough name to find a good hit in the same town/city using https://www.192.com ?

Chalkius

I mean, once an account has been opened, it's pretty straightforward to change an address without having to prove it, you can call up most banks or do it online. So they may have done it later. If they opened it at your address, it's possible that they had some very good faked documents showing their name and your address, bank employees are not all hardened fraud detectives. I wouldn't say Barclays have done much wrong, as long as they responded appropriately when informed of the potential fraud.

Joog

Exactly the same thing has just happened to me. Someone stole my daughter's identity to open online catalogue accounts with Next, New Look and freemans and they cleverly opened a free online credit score account first to check her credit history. Then, a week later we received 3 letters from Santander addressed here to someone we have never heard of refunding her for a fraud on her account involving New Look. Coincidence? I don't think so. Letter also said a new debit card was being sent to Leicester university branch for Miss CVC Edgar ( whoever she is) to collect in person.
No money has been taken from any of our accounts but Santander have allowed a complete stranger to open an account using our address without checking/confirming it.
Like you, I complained and have been fobbed off with the usual crap about data protection. They clearly don't have adequate checks in place to detect fraud. Why don't they search the electoral register or ask for proof of address?
I have contacted Action Fraud and am awaiting a response from Santander fraud team.
It would be interesting to know name of fraudster who opened account using your address- as my fraud started on 20th march through to 29 April 2017.
Annoying.

[Deleted User]

Joog wrote: »

Exactly the same thing has just happened to me. Someone stole my daughter's identity to open online catalogue accounts with Next, New Look and freemans and they cleverly opened a free online credit score account first to check her credit history.

That seems to be exactly not the same thing that happened to the OP.

GingerFurball_2

2nd part of the post appears to contradict the first though.