Vodafone debt - details changed to someone else.

geekychav

Hi Everyone - hope you're all well and having a pleasant day.

I'm not one for posting on forums usually but this recent incident has left me needing some advice.

Around about 7 years ago,. being a naive young man just into my twenties, I took out a Vodafone contract for my partner of the time due to her bad credit.

Once we split up, she continued to pay me and I continued to pay Vodafone. It was agreed that this would continue until the end of the contract.

The end came, the payments stopped and Vodafone no longer tried to collect the direct debit. I assumed all was okay,

Now around 5 years ago, I received a letter from a debt collection agency who informed me that I had defaulted on a £700 bill with Vodafone!

Obviously confused, I contacted Vodafone and asked what was happening and why they thought I owed them money. What they told me next left me absolutely gobsmacked.

At the end of the contract (or some point leading up to), my ex partner had contacted Vodafone and managed to upgrade the contract or it had lapsed onto a month by month contract.

You'd think I'd have known about this but considering Voda had allowed her to change the bank details to hers and all contact information on the account to hers. Literally the whole account was now in my name legally, but with everything to do with the account changed to my exes name.

My ex had stopped paying the bill after a while and Vodaphone had been sending letters, emails and texts out to the contact details they had - which were hers. I didn't even know I had a contract a this point.

I asked how this had happened and they couldn't tell me. They also couldn't explain why my details had now been used in respect of sending the letter out. Seems like the debt collection agency have my details not hers.

After getting nowhere with them in terms of resolution, I contacted my ex and informed her of the letter. She promised to contact them and set up a payment plan. I assumed she had done this as I heard nothing further.

Now, today and 5 years on, I have walked into a letter threatening me with legal action over this debt. I believe the reason the letter has now come is because ironically, I've been paying close attention to my credit score over the last 6 months and have taken steps to improve it. 1 being to pay in full, the only default I've ever actually had and 1 was to register on the electoral roll. I'm guessing it's the latter of the actions which has resulted in them finding me and contacting me.

As part of improving my score, I've taken advantage of ClearScore and the credit club app from this site. I believe one shows my Equifax score and one shows my Experian score - Neither of which have any mention of this on there.

So, essentially, I haven't got a clue what to do. Do I ignore it? Do I contact them and explain and if needs be, start fraud proceedings against my ex?

Any advice would be much loved. It's so upsetting to deal with one debt and have another one for double the amount land on your face which doesn't even belong to you.

I'm wondering if in todays world of GDPR, this would be taken more seriously as a data breach in the event that I contact Vodafone to discuss the account.

Thanks in advance and have a great evening.

sourcrates

Hi,

You can report the matter to action fraud, here :

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk


once you’ve done that you’ll get a crime reference number, so you can give that to the debt collector when you write to dispute liability.

It is ridiculously easy for a partner or family member to do things like this over the net, or phone, who know your details, and it can be a hell of a job disputing them too, that’s about the best you can do I’m afraid.

WhenIam64

Proving fraud is a high level of burden.

As an alternative, you could invite Voda to take you to court as a favourable judgment for you would be persuasive if you wanted to allow the police to take further action. The facts and Voda's behaviour and checks would have to be produced for a judge to look at (wonder of they'd want to do that)

It's a few hours work, a few hours in court, a risk that you might lose but it may be cheaper and less hassle than letting it drag on.

The above comes with a warning though - not for the faint hearted.