Advice on what to do about CIFAS fraud marker.

Oscar99

Hope you like reading because there's some backstory here. I was 18 at the time, was living with my parents and still am. We were planning to move house ,however, the house we were planning to move to was in rural Wales and had very poor broadband but was covered by the 4G mobile network. So my mother went to EE looking for a mobile broadband router that we could use for things such as downloading large files ect. However, we believe that because we were in the process of selling our current house, neither of my parents were able to pass EE's credit check. The man on the phone at EE suggested that he could perform a credit check on me but still take payments from my parents' bank account ,however, I would be in control of the EE account. A couple weeks pass and unfortunately the person selling the house in Wales backed out of the sale for some unknown reason. However at this point our house was due to be sold very soon. So we looked for somewhere else and found a cottage in the Scottish borders that we would be able to purchase outright with the money from the house we were selling. However we found out that the area around the house wasn't covered by any sort of phone network at all which wasn't a huge deal. The house had been empty for 35 years and was in need of repairs but was structurally sound. The private water spring needed re-piping, septic system replacing and central heating installing. So, because there was no phone coverage my mother went to EE and canceled the contract and paid something ridiculous like £300 in cancellation fees and equipment charges. This was in June 2017. Some time passes and in January this year I attempt to log into my online banking and receive a message saying something along the lines of "This account has been de-activated". After a phone call to NatWest that got me absolutely nowhere I rode my motorcycle 25 miles to the closest branch in the middle of winter and spend 5 minutes talking to a guy who tells me that my account is being closed and nothing else. I go to the counter, pull all my money out and head home. Thinking that NatWest just didn't want me, I try to open a basic account with Bank of Scotland (Not RBS that owns NatWest). The process goes fine and I receive a card and all my paperwork and can access my account. However, after a few days I receive a text and a letter stating that my application has been declined (After I've already received and signed a card and had access to my account). The letter from Bank of Scotland stated that I wasn't accepted for a BASIC account and should contact CIFAS for more information. Some times passes and I finally get a letter off to CIFAS and the report comes back.

On the report there is only one entry filed by "EE ltd t/a T-Mobile (UK)". It states that I have Misused a facility and states the reason for why the case is fraud to be "Evasion of payment". After finding this out I contact EE and ask to speak to somebody who can help me with this. I end up speaking to someone who says that I need my MOTHERS permission to discuss the account (My account from what I was told over the phone mid-2017). Anyway, I get my mother on the phone who confirms her details and states to the woman that she may discuss the account with me. After a couple of minutes I am told that there is £123.63 outstanding balance on the account and that it has been passed to a debt-collection agency called "Moorcroft". I have no idea why I owe this money as the account was closed in June 2017 and all cancellation fees paid. I check my credit report and find out that this £123.63 debt had become approximately £135 one month after the account had been closed and £1068!!!!!! two months after the account had been closed. We have had a post-redirection from our old house to our new house before we even moved and it only expired June this year, I have not received a single phone call, letter or visit about this debt for this entire time, and still haven't. I was supposed to get a job after we moved house to help contribute to the renovations, however, I have been unable to do that as I have no bank account, I have had to disassemble my motorcycle and sell the parts for much less than they're worth just to get some money and also the fact that I was unable to pay my insurance, tax and MOT on it and didn't have any money to perform basic maintenance. I live in the middle of nowhere, my mother works away, my father works nights, there is no public transport and that bike was my only way of getting around. The furthest I have been this year is cycling 5 miles to the local village every so often to go the the doctors. This fraud marker has made my life absolute misery, we haven't even had the money to perform basic renovations to the house, there is no proper heating, the septic system is completely knackered still and we haven't been able to afford to re-lay 0.5 miles of pipe from our house to the water spring that should be supplying us. Currently we fill an IBC tank up from a burn next to the house and pressurize that for washing and we collect about 100 liters of water from our nearest neighbor 1 mile away every fortnight for drinking and cooking. These are all things that should have been done by now with my wages.

I want to know what I can do about this situation, I've contacted EE but got absolutely nowhere with them. I'm not contacting Moorcroft because they're just going to ask for money that I haven't got and can't earn. My remaining options are probably contact CIFAS, if that fails then I'd have to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service and if that Fails my only option would be to take EE to court and we all know that would just end up with me owing even more money. What can I do? What I can see wrong here is that EE would not allow me access to an account that I was told was mine, if my parents' stopped making payments I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. I was never contacted in any form and informed that I owed money and Bank of Scotland closed my account without providing any notice at all. In fact, the letter I received was dated the day after I was unable to access my account.

[Deleted User]

Could you provide a summary with just the key information. Include who was receiving information about the account and by what means.

Don't worry about the stuff about the house, the spring and the motorbike.

Oscar99

I was receiving all the information about my bank accounts and EE had never contacted us at all about anything, not me, not my parents. This is the problem, nobody contacted us about anything and then it leads to this situation.

Quick breakdown goes like this.

Open account with EE.
After a few weeks account no longer required.
Close account and pay cancellation fees.
Move house/
Time passes and I can't access my bank account.
Bank account gets closed and I try to open another and get declined.
Contact Cifas and find that EE have put a fraud marker on me.
Never received any information about payments so contact EE.
Find out I owe them a small amount of money that is now a big amount due to debt collection agency.
Life on hold for several months and no idea what to do.

[Deleted User]

Raise an official complaint with EE, including asking why information was not sent re the debt.

If you can't get it resolved, go to the ICO.

When you make your complaint, keep it short and just stick to the salient facts. You're aiming to get them to understand and resolve the problem quickly.

Oscar99

I will attempt to make an official complaint on Monday however why would I contact the ICO regarding EE? I was informed that if EE would not resolve the issue and remove the fraud marker then I should contact CIFAS and further if they refuse I would have to make a complaint with the Financial ombudsman service.

[Deleted User]

ICO deal with the correct handling and reporting of information. Contact them as well as FOS.

Oscar99

Okay. I've contacted EE twice. They are saying that we never put in a request to cancel the account and that they have sent 5 letters in regards to non-payment. However, we never received these letters. They were sent non-tracked and non-signed for. During the period the letters were sent (June - September 2017) we received all other letters either through a royal mail redirection or before this, we stopped all deliveries to the old house and collected them from the post office. I'm not entirely sure what to do here. I could contact royal mail and see if they have anything in regards to any letters but I don't see a way they would be able to trace 5 letters sent over a year ago.

takman

Oscar99 wrote: »

I was supposed to get a job after we moved house to help contribute to the renovations, however, I have been unable to do that as I have no bank account,

That's just an excuse, you could have got your wages paid into one of your parents account.

Oscar99

This isn't the place to be discussing this. The main issue is the fact that I live in the middle of nowhere mate. Both of my parents work full time and earn barely enough money to support the family. I had transport but due to the fraud marker I was unable to get a job to pay for insurance, tax, MOT, Maintenance and my re-test for the bike. Hence, I was unable to keep it on the road. There is no public transport where I live. If I could have had my wages paid into another account don't you think I'd be doing that? I'd love a clean, reliable supply of water and proper heating during winter, but, unfortunately that isn't the case. You find me an employer that will hire somebody with a fraud marker, no bank account, no access to private or public transport and one parent that works away for a week at a time and another that works nights.

[Deleted User]

You wouldn't get a fraud marker from not paying an EE account.. there's more to this than you're letting on

takman

Oscar99 wrote: »

This isn't the place to be discussing this. The main issue is the fact that I live in the middle of nowhere mate. Both of my parents work full time and earn barely enough money to support the family. I had transport but due to the fraud marker I was unable to get a job to pay for insurance, tax, MOT, Maintenance and my re-test for the bike. Hence, I was unable to keep it on the road. There is no public transport where I live. If I could have had my wages paid into another account don't you think I'd be doing that? I'd love a clean, reliable supply of water and proper heating during winter, but, unfortunately that isn't the case. You find me an employer that will hire somebody with a fraud marker, no bank account, no access to private or public transport and one parent that works away for a week at a time and another that works nights.

Any job will accept any bank details to pay your wages in, you just give them the bank details of one of your parents it's as simple as that.
The majority of jobs will not carry out any check on your credit report so a fraud marker shouldn't affect it.
You really should have just taken any job you available when you had your motorbike.

It's not EE's fault that your family moved to a house that they couldn't afford to bring up to a good standard, you were all aware of the issues when you bought it.
It's also not EE's fault that you moved to an area which has limited jobs.

I'm only mentioning all this because you seem to be blaming them partly for you not being able to get a job.