problem with littlewoods account

mandooz · 13 September 2011 at 8:57AM

Hi
my daughter is in a mess with littlewoods catalogue.
She was recently living with a boyfriend who, unknown to her, opened a littlewoods account in her name, using my address and ordered a mobile phone for himself. We suspected nothing and he was able to divert the bills when they came. He made a couple of cash payments on the bill.
They have now split up (hooray) and littlewoods are after her for the balance plus over £300 in fees and insurance.
As she had no knowledge of this she wrote asking for a copy of the signed credit agreement. They sent an unsigned agreement.

Any advice on how she stands with this would be most helpful.
mandooz

crazyguy · 13 September 2011 at 8:59AM

You should pay for it seeing as you are so pleased that he is not with her anymore, look at as a kind of splitting up present for her,

mandooz · 13 September 2011 at 9:06AM

Could do as you are right ,I am delighted, but have already paid the council tax and sky bill that he did not pay, lost the deposit for the wedding venue, cars etc and repaired the damage to my daughters car where he kicked it after she threw him out. This is a little bit last strawish!!

crazyguy · 13 September 2011 at 9:14AM

Well then think about it your so happy that they are not together and another £300.00 wont harm you on top of the rest, unless you want her to get ccj over it,

You can try and write to them and state that this was taken out fraudulently, but knowing these guys you probably have little hope, give that a go and if it fails then looks as if bank of Mum & Dad comes in again !

Zandoni · 13 September 2011 at 9:30AM

I'd report it to the police as it is fraud, once you have done that contact Littlewoods and tell them as much as you can about the boyfriend. I'd also ask Littlewoods to suspend the account while it's under dispute.

Also talk to the CAB

fluffnutter · 13 September 2011 at 9:35AM

Yeah, I'm with Zandoni. I'm often happy to just let things go for an easy life but this would incense me. If one of the stipulations of opening this account is a signed agreement and Littlewoods can't produce this, I'd most definitely keep pursuing this. Not least because their shoddy and lax processes shouldn't allow such fraudulent activity. Companies are so quick to get your account opened quick! and start making money out of you! that they don't follow the most basic of security procedures and then leave the poor defrauded customer to pick up the pieces.

Report this to the police, and absolutely keep banging on at Littlewoods until they wipe out all the charges.

Fridaycat · 13 September 2011 at 9:58AM

I agree that this should be reported as fraud and something done about it, but am curious how neither you nor your daughter knew of this account? If the account was opened using your address, the bills would have come to your house - did the BF stand by the door waiting for the postman to deliver them when due? Also, LW don't allow first orders to be sent to an alternative address (to reduce potential fraud), so the phone must have been delivered to your house?

Just curious how you didn't notice any bills or the delivery of the phone itself. OK - he might have been able to "divert" a couple of statements, but all of them? Sounds like there have been a few if he did make a couple of payments and then there will have been further communications via mail if no payments are received.

TheTruthMachine · 13 September 2011 at 10:01AM

Get your daughter to ring up and state she has no knowledge of account and asked to be put through to fraud. They will investigate

Dorisx · 13 September 2011 at 10:02AM

I may be corrected if I'm wrong (its been a while since I opened my Very account) but dont you need to assign a debit card or credit card to the account when opened? Did the bf use your daughters card to make the payments or his own?

There is definately no credit agreement that you have to sign, you just have to tick a box online saying you agree to the terms and conditions.

The reason I ask about the card is just because if he used his own then maybe you'd have a bit more proof that it was him using the account rather than your daughter? - I can imagine it would be very hard to prove that it was him that opened the account rather than your daughter. I do hope you find a way though, i'd be rather reluctant to pay £300 worth of debt for someone else too!!

I'm not sure if there is anyway you can stop this but is there any chance he could have other things in your daughters name? Different catalogues ect? It may be worth getting a credit reprt from Equifax or something to check which things are set up in your daughters name - wont be nice if in a few months down the line you find he also had set up a very account and spent another £300 on there that he aint going to pay too!

Hope you get it sorted, Good Luck! x

TheTruthMachine · 13 September 2011 at 10:10AM

Dorisx wrote: »

I may be corrected if I'm wrong (its been a while since I opened my Very account) but dont you need to assign a debit card or credit card to the account when opened? Did the bf use your daughters card to make the payments or his own?

There is definately no credit agreement that you have to sign, you just have to tick a box online saying you agree to the terms and conditions.

The reason I ask about the card is just because if he used his own then maybe you'd have a bit more proof that it was him using the account rather than your daughter? - I can imagine it would be very hard to prove that it was him that opened the account rather than your daughter. I do hope you find a way though, i'd be rather reluctant to pay £300 worth of debt for someone else too!!

I'm not sure if there is anyway you can stop this but is there any chance he could have other things in your daughters name? Different catalogues ect? It may be worth getting a credit reprt from Equifax or something to check which things are set up in your daughters name - wont be nice if in a few months down the line you find he also had set up a very account and spent another £300 on there that he aint going to pay too!

Hope you get it sorted, Good Luck! x

SDG don't require it to be assigned as you can use any card as long as you can answer the card ownership questions but speak to fraud they should be able to help

alistair.long · 13 September 2011 at 10:11AM

Report him to the Police, and then issue a claim in the county court against him and claim the money back.

problem with littlewoods account

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free