Victim of fraud - next steps?

PJH_2

Hi,

We live overseas but still have various accounts running in the UK (phones, banks, home owner, etc..). We recently remortgaged with a specialist buy to let provider for expats, so that we could continue renting out our house whilst away. When providing my wife's credit file to our new lender we noticed a couple of unknown things on there.

First a Vodafone account had been opened in my wife's name, not been paid and had been defaulted on. We only became aware of it because the debt collection company (Lowell) tracked us down at my wife's parents address. The original Vodafone account did not show up when we used checkmyfile.com, although the LOweel debt is now showing.

Second, an O2 account had been opened and closed within the last year.

We are dealing with the debt and have no problem there. However my main concern is about how these accounts were opened.

It is possible (although we have no evidence) that the tenants in our house opened an account in my wife's name and then purposefully didn't forward any postal notification for outstanding bills. We just don't know what happened.

Going forward, we want to make sure this can never happen again. So my question is:

What protection can we put in place?

I'm guessing we could use royal mail to get all post forwarded (which is quite expensive) or possibly put ourselves on protective registration through CIFA?

Any advice is much appreciated

boo_star

CIFAS Protective Registration https://www.cifas.org.uk/services/identity-protection/protective-registration

PJH_2

Thanks Boo_star,

I've had a look at CIFAS and can't quite work out whether they are a good or bad thing. It seems like a few other people on the forum have had them placed on their credit record because of debt, therefore giving a warning light to future lenders.

What I haven't found is any examples of users choosing to do it. If you pay to have the protection, can future lenders look at this negatively even though it was our choice?

garth549

A protective CIFAS marker just means that lenders will take extra care when applications for credit are made in your name. It just means you'll likely have to jump through more hoops to obtain credit.

It's worth it though if there's a clear risk to you of identity fraud.

I voluntarily added one to my record when someone managed to take out 6 mobile phone contracts in my name in the same day and shop! I've no idea how the shop could have been so stupid, but anyway!

Gaz83

When you say you are dealing with the debt, what do you mean?

PJH_2

Hi Gaz83,

Unfortunately we were backed into a corner. Our new lender told us that they could only proceed with the new mortgage if we cleared the debt. This meant we had to decide what was more important, getting our new mortgage sorted or pausing the process until we could get the default removed from my wife's credit history.

We had no choice but to pay, as not sorting out the new mortgage would have had huge implications. To be fair, our broker and Lowell where both very clear about how this affect my wife's credit report in the future.

Not a good outcome, which is why we want to put as much protection as possible in place so that this can't happen again.

[Deleted User]

It was unnecessary to have paid the debts, a letter explaining your circumstances to each of the companies would have been sufficient.

MisterBaxter

PJH wrote: »

Hi Gaz83,

To be fair, our broker and Lowell where both very clear about how this affect my wife's credit report in the future.
.

I'm shocked that Lowell would be so underhanded in giving you such poor advice! Of course, I'm not what else were they going to do; they basically extorted money out of you that you didn't owe and should be taken to task for it. I can understand that your broker explained the risk and potential complexities it may cause but it sounds as though they gave you poor advice just to give themselves an easy life.

Did paying off the O2 debt that wasn't yours get the marker for that account removed from your credit file, if it didn't then paying it will have solved very little as there will still be a negative marker for lenders to see.

PJH_2

Thanks everyone.

I should explain, Lowell haven't actually done anything wrong and did not advice us to pay the debt. The reason we paid the debt was because our new lender would only proceed (with immediate affect) if we cleared it. The lender would have waited, and if we had the time to investigate the fraud that would have been fine, but because of previous delays we had to solve this problem ASAP.

The situation is far from ideal but what we did with the debt is not really the issue. How we protect ourselves in the future is what I'm keen to get advice on.

The O2 account was opened and closed with no outstanding debt (so no marker), but worrying that someone has done this so easily - how do we stop it happening again in the future?

Candyapple

PJH wrote: »

how do we stop it happening again in the future?

Given that you are overseas, all you can do is apply for a CIFAS protective registration marker in both your names. The difference between a protective registration and a ‘normal’ CIFAS marker is that the normal markers are applied usually through fraud or other negative means by lenders directly.

A protective registration marker can be applied for by the individual to protect themselves from ID theft, or a lender can apply it on behalf of a customer if they believe that the customer has been the victim of ID theft (to save them having to pay the £25 fee). It lasts for 2 years and basically what it means is that if someone tried to apply for any form of credit in your wife’s name, the application would be deferred subject to additional checks. This would usually be in the form of trying to contact your wife by one of her listed methods of contact to confirm that it was indeed her trying to take out the credit product. This ultimately stops any immediate forms of accounts being opened simultaneously.

My guess is it probably is/was one of your tenants and they thought they could get away with it, but since you can't prove it, nothing you can do about it.

If you still have phones, bank accounts and mortgage in the UK then where does all the mail for these accounts go? Do you ask your tenants to hold onto it for you? Or do you forward them to another UK address e.g. parents?

You and your wife should check all 3 of your credit files to make sure that there has been no other activity that you haven’t spotted yet:
Experian: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub
Equifax: https://www.clearscore.com
TransUnion (formerly Call Credit): https://www.creditkarma.co.uk

macbride

Read the post with interest. Same thing happened to me re car insurance with Saga taken out in my name (I have no car). A debit card I hardly ever use was used to purchase, my address details were perfect. Santander picked up the fraud and the payment didn't go through at least not paid by me but Santander must have covered because the insurance went live and I started to get requests for no claims bonus info. When I phoned Saga I alerted them to the fraud and since then have had various letters re the insurance cover including one by signed for delivery telling me the insurance would shortly be cancelled! I get the fact things have to run their course on fraud investigations, but it strikes me that I am being put to a lot of inconvenience and cost (I have paid for identity fraud cover) and neither Santander or Saga seem willing to talk about how this happened in the first place which annoys me greatly. To top it off I got a letter from Saga telling me the "complaint" was satisfactorily resolved. Does anybody know what a person's rights are when fraud like this happens? How much info are we entitled to? Seems like both Saga and Santander want to brush everything under the carpet.