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Two letters arrived in the post this morning for me. One regarding my Debenhams store card and one regarding my new Tesco mobile account. As I hadn’t applied for either of these alarm bells started ringing. I spoke to the Fraud team at Debenhams and someone had used my identity to open a store card account in Blackburn and had spent £500. Tesco told me someone had set up an account.
Here’s what I’ve learned very quickly about what to do if this happens to you:
1. Register with www.equifax.co.uk and use the 30 day free trial to see if there has been any credit search activity on your account. If there has, then you need to call all of the companies identified to notify them that the activity was fraudulent. They will then investigate and will hopefully remove the search off your account.
2. Register with https://www.cifas.org.uk/ This costs £25 for 24 months but means additional checks will be applied if someone tries to get credit using your identity.
3. Report the fraud to Police though the ActionFraud website.
I’ve no idea how the criminals have got my details. Be careful how you dispose of any documentation with your name and address on it. Ideally you should shred it.
How do we know it's really you posting this?
As a precaution, I've deleted your STW account.
How do we know it’s really you posting this?
We need the long card number, expiry date and CVV to verify it really is him...
someone's stolen eddiebaby's image - there's thieves everywhere!
Hilarious replies yet nasty topic to be hit in the pocket by a raging mozzy.
You've identified all of the right things to do. Now make sure you check your mail daily for the next few months. The culprit will most likely have applied to Royal Mail to have your mail redirected so that the new cards can be sent to him/her. Royal Mail should be sending you a letter to confirm that you want to go ahead with the change. If you don't reply they will go ahead with it regardless. Ridiculous, I know.
This is what happened to me exactly 1 year ago:
Day 1: Attempted camera purchase at Jessops using V12 finance. - luckily they called to confirm as culprit used incorrect data about me and I was luckily already a v12 client.
Day 2: Argos card application letter received in post. Called up to cancel. Apparently culprit used gas bill as ID - clearly forged as my bills are all online.
Day 3: John Lewis credit card application - £5000 limit - letter received. Cancelled via phone call.
3 weeks later: Demand for payment of unpaid bills. Three O2 phone contracts opened up in my name totalling 1000's. Called up O2 who sorted it. I never even been a O2 customer.
That was the end of the matter and it took few months for my credit score to be rectified.
After the whole ordeal I signed up to CIFAS's paid service that puts extra measures in place should I or anybody else apply for credit etc in my name. Well worth paying even if you've not been a victim yourself as it is actually quite frightening being targeted!