Fraudulent contracts on credit file, how to get removed?

Ben8282

Richy85 wrote: »

I ask you, why would we take a bunch of phones out on contract only to give them away to some random person and be left with multiple accounts in arrears which is making getting a mortgage difficult and causing us stress and anxiety with having debt collectors contacting us?

You wouldn't of course. But let me ask you if you believe that some 'random' person could have successfully placed five orders in your names with the same place presumably all at the same time for them to have arrived in one package for five mobile phones all connected to different networks?
They would have had to have all your details. They would have had to have passed five credit checks all during the same order. How did they pay any upfront cost involved? What online retailer of contract mobile phones permits such orders to be placed? The whole thing defies belief.

boo_star

Ben8282 wrote: »

You wouldn't of course. But let me ask you if you believe that some 'random' person could have successfully placed an order in your names with the same 'place' presumably all at the same time for them to have arrived in one package for five mobile phones all connected to different networks? It must have bene online for the phones to have been delivered.
They would have had to have all your details. They would have had to have passed five credit checks all during the same order. How did they pay any upfront cost involved? What online retailer of contract mobile phones permits such orders to be placed? The whole thing defies belief.

To be fair I just had a look and it looks like you can even get an iPhone 11 Max from Three with no upfront cost, although it is an eye-watering £93 a month.

Although I suppose that doesn't matter if you're not paying the bill.

I think the OP's story does seem a little tall, but not completely implausible.

xlnc99

Richy85 wrote: »

It was during the holidays, my other half recieved the phones delievered via DPD.
Then later on someone came round again in DPD clothes with ID and stated that there had been a mistake and they should have been delivered elsewhere.
In the confusion she handed the package back over.

This is the second courier driver/scammer that I was referring to.
Once the penny had dropped as to what had happened we called DPD and they had no record of anyone coming back to this address.


All the phone were from one place, but on different networks so it was just the one package for all the phones.

Given the situation she probably did the right thing, not sure what could have happened if she had refused to give the phones to the scammer that turned up to 'collect' the phones.

Not sure how anyone had her details, we're normal pretty savvy in regards to scams and such, the only thing that she's done out of the norm lately was giving a donation online to a well known charity, perhaps that wasn't all that it seemed to be?

Be as cynical as you like, at the end of the day this HAS happened and we are 100% an innocent party in all this.

Sounds like an elaborate scam just for five phones! DPD pretend driver stalking your house waiting for the phones to arrive. I believe your story and it could well be this is an inside job from DPD. Basically it looks like to me DPD driver who has details of when the phones were going to be delivered to your address has come back with his proper credintals to scam the phone.

However, you say you and your wife are savy to 'scams' yet she has handed back 5 phones with her name and her address on it to a DPD driver who claims its the wrong address! That doesnt sound SAVY at all, if anything your other half is partly to blame. She has handed back goods in her own name and address back! if that was me i would be keeping the goods until i phoned the phone companies!

Another point is, 5 different networks giving 5 brand new (i imagine top of the range phones) on contract in one day! Would have thought one or two companies would have rejected this.

Your best bet is to complaint in writing/email to the head office of all companies and also their personal email addess u can find online through google. However im not sure how far you will get as technically ur other half has signed for the phones

boo_star

xlnc99 wrote: »

Sounds like an elaborate scam just for five phones! DPD pretend driver stalking your house waiting for the phones to arrive. I believe your story and it could well be this is an inside job from DPD. Basically it looks like to me DPD driver who has details of when the phones were going to be delivered to your address has come back with his proper credintals to scam the phone.

However, you say you and your wife are savy to 'scams' yet she has handed back 5 phones with her name and her address on it to a DPD driver who claims its the wrong address! That doesnt sound SAVY at all, if anything your other half is partly to blame. She has handed back goods in her own name and address back! if that was me i would be keeping the goods until i phoned the phone companies!

Another point is, 5 different networks giving 5 brand new (i imagine top of the range phones) on contract in one day! Would have thought one or two companies would have rejected this.

Your best bet is to complaint in writing/email to the head office of all companies and also their personal email addess u can find online through google. However im not sure how far you will get as technically ur other half has signed for the phones

It's really not that implausible. Credit card fraud is often done using the same sort of thing, and getting hold of a fake DPD uniform and ID that will fool the average person (could you tell me other than the shirt being red what a DPD drivers workwear and ID look like?) isn't difficult either.

I also don't think the five phones were ordered from different networks but the same one. Although ordering five, presumably quite high value phones, seems risky in terms of the order being declined.

As far as knowing when the order was delivered, if they made the fraudulent orders, they'd also be getting delivery emails, which in DPD's case would give them a delivery window and of course confirmation of the delivery too.

xlnc99

as i said in my previous post, i believe this story. It could be an inside job or yes your right it could be someone with a fake uniform id etc. But then where would he get a DPD van? All this hassle for a few phones that will be getting blocked. I belive the OP said they were on different networks, Tesco was one of them. I cant see one network giving out 5 brand new phones to one person with 5 lines. Infact i know EE have a limit of around 4 lines max and i also believe you can only take out additional lines once you been with a network for a while and paid bills. So there is no chance the five phones are on the same network,

You are also right about DPD sending confirmation, they do this via text and email. So the OP needs to find out what email and phone number DPD used to contact??????

But the main thing that strikes me is how the other half willingly gave back phones to this DPD drive? Did your other half see the DPD van? They always park infront! I cant get my head round the DPD driver saying to the his other half 'the phones are for another address' yet the other halfs name and address would be clearly visible on the packaging. That was a big error on the girlfriends part.

As far as the network are concerned, she signed for it with the original driver. There is no mention of the second driver as far as DPD are concerned so i dont no how far the OP will get here. The biggest issue here is the other half giving the phones back!

Ben8282

I respectfully disagree.
The issue of how all the necessary details were obtained has not been addressed.
The issue of whether it is actually possible to go online to a single provider and actually sign up for 5 different contract phones all with different networks in one transaction has not been addressed and in the absence of evidence to the contrary I would seriously doubt that it is possible.
As for the OP's wife just falling for this excuse and handing back a package addressed to either her or the OP with their address on it …. well.

boo_star

xlnc99 wrote: »

as i said in my previous post, i believe this story. It could be an inside job or yes your right it could be someone with a fake uniform id etc. But then where would he get a DPD van?

Gumtree, then get someone to knock up fake DPD decals for it. But we don't even know if the wife saw a van, and lets be honest most peopel wouldn't be looking for one. They'll see a person with a plausible DPD uniform saying a mistake was made by their company and that would be the end of it. Goods are handed over.
It happens enlugh for people to commit credit card fraud to earn a living, why not ID fraud?

All this hassle for a few phones that will be getting blocked. I belive the OP said they were on different networks, Tesco was one of them. I cant see one network giving out 5 brand new phones to one person with 5 lines. Infact i know EE have a limit of around 4 lines max and i also believe you can only take out additional lines once you been with a network for a while and paid bills. So there is no chance the five phones are on the same network,

I admittedly overlook that but it was 3 networks with 5 phones, not 5 networks. Given that Tesco are an MVNO is it possible the phones were ordered from o2 and maybe giffgaff too which would really make them all the same company. Maybe the fraudsters were sure to pick companies they knew were sure to send via DPD. After all, its kinda their business to mow these things.

You are also right about DPD sending confirmation, they do this via text and email. So the OP needs to find out what email and phone number DPD used to contact??????

ThE DPA/GDPR will prevent them doing that.

But the main thing that strikes me is how the other half willingly gave back phones to this DPD drive? Did your other half see the DPD van? They always park infront! I cant get my head round the DPD driver saying to the his other half 'the phones are for another address' yet the other halfs name and address would be clearly visible on the packaging. That was a big error on the girlfriends part.

Scams work because people are trusting and aren't expecting things to be a scam. Why does the Nigerian 419 scam still work? Why do any of them work? Why are pensioners still walking into bank branches and sending money to strangers?

As far as the network are concerned, she signed for it with the original driver. There is no mention of the second driver as far as DPD are concerned so i dont no how far the OP will get here. The biggest issue here is the other half giving the phones back!

It's a problem, certainly, but that doesn't change the fact that the phones were ordered fraudulently. DPD are irrelevant here. The phones were delivered to the OP, that's a fact. But that doesn't mean that there was no fraud.

boo_star

Ben8282 wrote: »

I respectfully disagree.
The issue of how all the necessary details were obtained has not been addressed.
The issue of whether it is actually possible to go online to a single provider and actually sign up for 5 different contract phones all with different networks in one transaction has not been addressed and in the absence of evidence to the contrary I would seriously doubt that it is possible.
As for the OP's wife just falling for this excuse and handing back a package addressed to either her or the OP with their address on it …. well.

It's somewhat implausible but not impossible.

And some people really are that stupid. You have a bit too much faith in humanity.

Gaz83

Ben8282 wrote: »

As for the OP's wife just falling for this excuse and handing back a package addressed to either her or the OP with their address on it …. well.

There are countless stories from around the UK every day of people sending money to strangers online in return for receiving a massive amount from a prince in some far-off made-up country.

Never underestimate the capacity of the average human for momentary greed / foolishness.

abc.xyz

Ben8282 wrote: »

the delivery man came back saying that the delivery was an error and should have been to someone else on the road

the second delivery guy must have been waiting and was one of the scammers.

So a delivery man delivers 5 phones to your house all presumably addressed to you/your wife with your/her name and address on.
Then you contradict yourself by saying that the delivery man came back but then mention a second delivery guy so which was it?
If the phones were delivered by the Royal Mail then it would have been your uniformed postman. If 5 phones were ordered from 5 separate providers, I find it very hard indeed to believe that they would all be delivered by the same delivery van on the same day.
And how could your wife have accepted that the phones were intended for another address when they had YOUR/HER name and address on them?
Not to mention how the 'scammers' obtained all the necessary details to have successfully opened 5 new contracts and ordered 5 new phones in your/her name.

I simply don't believe your story and for that reason completely understand why the mobile phone providers don't believe it either.

Actually, this is a common scam...

"A new scam involving a mobile phone delivery has seen unsuspecting victims lose hundreds of pounds out of pocket, say reports.

The ruse begins with a knock at the door and a top of the range phone handed over to the occupant by a legitimate courier firm.

The package has the home owner's name on it, but they have no memory of having ordered it.

Before they have time to work out why they are holding a sparkling piece of new tech, there's a second knock on the door.

This time it's a different person, but dressed as a courier.

"We didn't mean to deliver that, it was a mistake," they will say, before requesting the phone back.

Those who hand the phone over find themselves paying for their honesty.

The ploy is pulled off by scammers who, having managed to get hold of your personal details, place an expensive order to your house.

They then set up camp outside your address on the day of the delivery before attempting to intercept the courier."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/warning-over-new-mobile-phone-18996929
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/money-saving-tips/jessicainvestigates/10385330/Mobile-phone-delivery-scam-on-the-rise.html