Letter from virgin money but I have no account

GeekieGirlie

I received a letter from virgin money. To my address by post. 

Saying they tried to send a letter about my account but it got returned. And that it’s important that they have the correct address. Well obviously they do they sent this letter I have. 

They’ve asked to call on a number I googled which many have said either phishing or re an old Yorkshire bank account. 

I had an old Yorkshire bank savings acct Many years ago with about 2p in lol. At an old address. I stopped using thought I’d closed it actually and I’m sure they said they were closing it. 

Do you think it will be to do with that? There’s no reference on letter except two initials. Just curious if is them how they got my new address. Although I am with O2 and they’ve moved across to virgin media so maybe how? 

Anyway lol shall I just ignore it? As anyone else had one and called them? 

QrizB

GeekieGirlie said:

I received a letter from virgin money. To my address by post.

Addressed to you by name?

GeekieGirlie said:

Anyway lol shall I just ignore it? As anyone else had one and called them? 

If you want to call them, use the Virgin Money customer service number from VM's website.

https://uk.virginmoney.com/contact/

Have the letter to hand in case they need a reference number from it.

PRAISETHESUN

Quickest/safest way is to contact VM from the contact section on their website as listed above. It's not unheard of for scam letters to be sent, but from what you describe it sounds like it's probably legit. Only VM can tell you what it's about, or they will be able to confirm if it's not from them.

flaneurs_lobster

Other than the name, there's no connection between Virgin Money and Virgin MediaO2.

Clydesdale Bank (who trade using the Virgin Money name - should say so on your letter somewhere) have been acquired by Nationwide BS and they are looking to fully integrate the operations next year. Yorkshire Bank is/was part of Clydesdale.

Maybe there's an effort being directed at clearing down and closing any dormant accounts before this integration?

Do you have the details of your old bank account? I'd ring the number but be wary of volunteering any personal information. Maybe offer to ring Virgin Money at a CS number from their website and ask to be connected to the appropriate department?

eskbanker

GeekieGirlie said:

Just curious if is them how they got my new address. Although I am with O2 and they’ve moved across to virgin media so maybe how? 

Although Virgin Money and Virgin Media share a word and are under the same corporate umbrella, I'm pretty confident that there wouldn't be any data sharing between them.

Financial institutions can follow address changes around via credit agency data, for example, otherwise it would be easy for people to evade debts simply by moving - you could perhaps check your credit files to ensure that there's nothing unexpected there, but as above, the simplest solution would be to call them on a properly published number.

GeekieGirlie

QrizB said:

GeekieGirlie said:

I received a letter from virgin money. To my address by post.

Addressed to you by name?

GeekieGirlie said:

Anyway lol shall I just ignore it? As anyone else had one and called them? 

If you want to call them, use the Virgin Money customer service number from VM's website.

https://uk.virginmoney.com/contact/

Have the letter to hand in case they need a reference number from it.

Yes with my full name on it. I’ll go through  Their website thank you  

GeekieGirlie

Thank you everyone. I’ll just go by their contacts on their website if I call them and ignore the number on here just incase.

steven141

The other option would be to go into a branch with ID and the letter and they may be able to help.

silvercar

Had similar and it turned out someone had attempted to open an account in my name! Virgin money were quick to act, shut down the account and reported the incident to CIFAS. I wanted to know what information had been used, so did a SAR request, where they refused to pass on the information, on the grounds that I had reported the account as not being set up by me, so it wasn’t my data. I found this a bit odd.

born_again

silvercar said:

Had similar and it turned out someone had attempted to open an account in my name! Virgin money were quick to act, shut down the account and reported the incident to CIFAS. I wanted to know what information had been used, so did a SAR request, where they refused to pass on the information, on the grounds that I had reported the account as not being set up by me, so it wasn’t my data. I found this a bit odd.

GDPR  only allows you the right to see your own data, not when a 3rd party has set anything up.

alamest

I had something similar happen and when I looked into it, these letters often come from data linkage issues rather than an actual account.

Banks like Virgin Money use credit reference data to match names and addresses, and sometimes old records or shared addresses get pulled into automated mailing systems. It doesn’t necessarily mean an account exists in your name, just that their system thinks it might.

Best practice is to use the ""official Virgin Money contact details from their website"" (not numbers printed on the letter unless you’re sure) and ask them to confirm whether any account or record exists under your details. If not, ask them to update their records so you don't get contacted again.

It’s very common for outdated address links to trigger letters like this, so you're not alone and it’s absolutely worth double-checking directly with the bank for peace of mind.