This article grew out of a reader’s question. Mrs J, asked:
Since February my husband has started to receive letters from WageDay Advance, Satsuma and QuickQuid saying that he has loans with them that need repaying. He doesn’t have any loans. We have sent Prove It letters to all three. We have now had letters saying that WageDay Advance and QuickQuid have passed the account to debt collectors.
In addition, he has now had a letter from Visa Vanquis saying that he has an unpaid credit card. He doesn’t have an account with them. On speaking to them, it seems that the account number doesn’t exist and that it will be sorted out at their end.
Along with the Prove It letters (sent by recorded delivery), my husband has also phoned WageDay Advance, Satsuma and QuickQuid telling them that the debts are not his.
They have not proved that the debts are his but they keep sending letters. The debts appear on his Experian credit record. I dread the post arriving every day. Why is this happening? Do you have any advice about what we should do? It’s really starting to get us down.
This sounds like identity theft – someone has got hold of Mr J’s details and is using them to apply for credit in his name.
Your experience may be different – identity theft cases can be quite individual. But the prinicples about what you need to do are common.
Contents
Ways you may find out you have been a victim
There are other ways you can find out about identity theft:
- a debt collector may contact you about a debt you don’t recognise;
- you may find debts you don’t recognise on your credit files;
- you may be declined for credit or a mortgage;
- your bank may suddenly close your account where you have had no problems.
Not all of those will turn out to be identity theft.
Sometimes the debt you didn’t know about was yours (a parking ticket or an old bill sent to a previous address?). Sometimes there has been a “mistrace”, when someone else’s debt has been wrongly linked to your name. But they all need to be investigated.
Identity theft is an increasing problem
Identity theft is happening a lot more in Britain. In 2019 it went up 18% to 223,000 cases – and those were just the ones that were identified.
And it’s depressingly rare that the criminals are caught even when the police take it seriously, as this story shows: Scammers set-up a Very credit account in my name and ordered £3,000 worth of goods.
Which? has some good tips on how to avoid identity theft and identity fraud.
5 steps to take when you are a victim of identity theft
Mr J has done the right things so far: sending a Prove It letter and phoning up the lenders. It is disappointing that none of the lenders seems to have actually grasped that there is a real problem here.
Here five things I suggest Mr J should do now. Some of them may turn out to not be needed, but after six months, I think going for them all is the best approach to getting this all ended as soon as possible.
1 Report identity theft to Action Fraud
Mr J should inform Action Fraud about this identity theft because it is a crime. He can do this online and he will get a Crime Reference Number (CRN).
This is unlikely to result in a police investigation, but being able to tell the lenders that you have reported this, and give them the CRN, should hopefully mean they take it more seriously.
2 Inform Experian about the identity theft
Experian have a Victims of Fraud team that can help you sort out problems – contact them at identityfraud@uk.experian.com or call them on 0344 481 8000.
3 Check other credit records and statements
So far this has mainly been a nuisance and a worry to Mr and Mrs J. Although the scammers seem to have got enough details about Mr J to fool a new lender, they haven’t mentioned any problems with their own accounts.
But it’s good to be very careful now and for at least another year.
Mr J should check his records with all three credit reference agencies every month, see Check your credit records for free for how to do this. He is looking for any new debts or accounts he doesn’t recognise and any new addresses or associations with other people being added.
He also needs to look at his bank statements and credit card statements every month to check that there are no wrong purchases showing on there.
He could also consider changing his passwords for online and mobile access to his bank accounts and credit cards. Until something wrong shows up, this isn’t essential, but he may decide that it’s better to be totally safe.
4 Complain to all the lenders
I suggest he also makes a formal written complaint to each of the lenders, by email or letter. He should put COMPLAINT ABOUT IDENTITY THEFT as the title of the email.
These complaints need to say:
I have told you before [give dates] that I do not recognise this debt [give details of the debt on your credit record] and asked you to prove that it is mine. You have not done this and you have continued to send me letters. [add on if that the debt has been passed to a debt collector]
I have never borrowed from you. I have reported this to Action Fraud, this is my Crime Reference Number: 99999999.
I want you to do the following to put this right:
a) write me a letter accepting that the debt is not mine
b) agree that you will not sell this debt with my name on it to any third party
c) remove the debt from my name with all UK credit reference agencies
d) after this, cease to send me any more communications about this debt.
If this is not done within 8 weeks, I will be sending this complaint to the Financial Ombudsman and asking for compensation. This has been causing me and my wife a great deal of stress and you have just been ignoring me.”
If a lender doesn’t give in and correct the problem, Mr J should send his complaint to the Finanical Ombudsman and ask for compensation for the time and stress this has caused. He will need to send a separate complaint for each of the lenders.
5 Sign up for Cifas protection
Additionally, to stop any more problem debts happening, Mr J needs to sign up for protective registration at Cifas. This costs £20 for two years but I think it’s worth it.
After this has been done, when the thief tries to open a new account using Mr J’s details, the lender will see the Cifas flag and will have to contact him to ask if has applied for this credit – he can then say No.
This won’t damage Mr J’s credit score and it won’t stop Mr J himself taking out any further credit. It just means that his real applications will take a few extra days to process.
Top tip – check credit records 6 months before applying for a mortgage
You can try your best to keep your information private and be alert for phone, etc and email scams. But you can never rule it out totally.
Here is the sad story of someone who only found out about identity theft when her mortgage application was declined: ‘Having my identity stolen cost me £10,000’.
So even though you can’t stop it totally, it is good to check your credit records six months before you apply for a mortgage. Do this with all three credit reference agencies, see How to check your credit records for free. If you find a problem, you still have to sort out it out, but you avoid the costs and heartache of a house purchase falling through.
Improve your credit score for a mortgage
When can you get a default deleted?
A money detox to improve your finances
AB1509 says
Hi
This happened to my husband years ago when we applied for a mortgage. The mortgage company said it would approve us if we paid off the arrears we had them on a bank account. We didn’t have an account with them so we’re baffled.
After some digging on his credit report, someone had been opening up accounts everywhere with his name and date of birth but not our address.
It was written off by mortgage lender as we could prove that he was actually out of the country when the person who had opened the account had actually gone into the bank with ID apparently!! Scary times when we thought we were careful with shredding documents etc and this was long before we were connected to the big wide Web.
We got experian to put the cifas warning on our credit file which meant we had to have extra checks when taking out credit but it was worth it and it sorted the problem out.
What was frustrating though is that the person who was doing this seemed to be protected by data protection as the bank wouldn’t allow us to see any documents this person had apparently used to open the account nor tell us anything about their investigation into how this happened. Lucky we could prove it wasn’t him.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It is a nightmare when this sort of problem comes to light in the middle of a mortgage application!
Louis says
I’ve acutally had a bank phone me once to verify some details about a new account I was opening, told them right away that it wasn’t me, not to open the account and they told me what information had been given. It’s shocking as to what people will do though but just glad nothing happened! The identitify theft film might be all laughs but not in the real world!
Ode says
Had a payday loan taken out in my name by someone close to me with out my knowledge, was unaware of this untill i received a defult notice, rang the company up and was told that they would look into this and get back to me, a month later i received a letter from a debt collector demanding payment so i rang them to explain and was told i need to make these payment. So i decided to set up a payment plan as i didnt want this to hurt my credit. Made my final payment in June and low and behold they loan company place a defult on my credit file, so i sent an email no reply the following week i decided to call and explained everything he said that he can see i phoned up in feb of 2018 but the underwrite that i spoke to do not work for the company anymore and they cant remove the defult as they have no notes from the underwriter, he emailed me an E mail acknowledging the account was opened fraudulently and they had no contact details at that time to contact me to make amends on the account. What can i do? as he refused to remove the defult. Many thaks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It was very foolish to pay a debt when you are trying to tell the lender it is identity theft.
“he emailed me an E mail acknowledging the account was opened fraudulently and they had no contact details at that time to contact me to make amends on the account.” who emailed you and what date?
Karolina says
Hi Sara,
I stayed in UK for few weeks back in 2009, opened basic barclays account and went back home to Poland. Came back to UK in April 2010 for few weeks as well. Account was still open. After few years I realised i had that account so I called barclays and was told the account was closed down. I moved to Australia few years ago and out of the blue i reminded myself about barclays. So I called them and they couldn’t help me since I don’t have any letter anymore with details. They said to use mylostaccount so I did and got letter form barclays bank account was closed.
Karolina says
So the account was closed in 2012. Which is fine. But then j was wondering if I can check if someone was using my ID to open bank account or take loans?
Do you think it’s worth to ask CRA for statutory report? Or should I ask them them for SAR? Or should I maybe sent it to Cifas or somewhere to find out what info rhey have on my name etc.?
I contacted a person I was staying with in 2009 and said she can’t remember getting any mail in my name at the address. So do you think i should check it after 9-10 years?
Regards,
Karolina
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Honestly I don’t think you need to check after all this time. Wait until you have some evidence that there could be a problem.
Karolina says
So you think I should just leave it alone? And not ask for credit reports etc?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You have nothing to suggest there is any problem, have you?
Karolina says
Nope, no problems whatsoever.. just curious 🤷🏻♀️ I don’t even know if Barclays had my polish address to contact me or not..
I don’t know how it would work if someone took my identity and take a loan etc since I didn’t have anything in UK, no work no income.. i don’t even know why I started to worry about it
Jane says
Hi Sara,
I contacted you almost two years ago when my husband started to receive lots of letters from pay day loan companies asking for repayment of loans that weren’t his. You turned our many conversations into an article about identity theft.
We followed your advice to the letter and I am pleased to report that almost two years later, 4 out of the 5 loan companies have investigated our case and recognised that my husband had never had a loan from them- what a relief! However, we are absolutely hitting our heads against a brick wall with Satsuma. We have written all the necessary letters to them – they did not respond to us. We then passed the matter to the Financial Ombudsman in Jan 2019. They also contacted Satsuma but have had no response. Another year on and the ombudsman suggested we contact Satsuma directly and ask for the loan to be removed from my husbands credit history. They have now sent us the most awful letter saying they have never received any of our correspondence (I have proof of signature for the prove it letter sent by recorded delivery in 2018) and they state that the ombudsman has not made contact with them.
I am so cross! Should we got back to the Ombudsman and pass it back to them? We just cannot seem to get this one to go away.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Satsuma seem very slow and difficult at responding to affordability complaints and it’s bad news that applies to identity theft problems as well.
Yes, you should go back to the Ombudsman. I suggest you also ask for compensation for the length of time Satsuma has taken to sort this out.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I have sent you an email.
Lile says
My husband and I checked his credit for the first time two days ago and found 6 loans in his name he did not recognize and says he never took out! After looking at his bank statements we found these loans were deposited into his bank account and his ex partner had transferred the money from his account to her account and with some of the loans she took out cash. We have contacted Experian who will investigate and some of the loan companies! Action fraud says it isn’t a police reportable crime. We hope we can sort this out! Any advice? :/
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How long ago were these loans – was it before they had split up/
lile says
The loans were taken out in 2016 while they were still together :(
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ok, it is very difficult to persuade the police or lenders this is fraud when your other half had access to your bank account.
He may need to assume he is lumbered with the debts and gets good debt advice on his options. Phone National Debtline on 0808 808 4000.
Kate says
Hi just after some advice my partner spilt up from his wife a year ago we have found out she took out loans ect all in his name which he said he didn’t know about it was all paid into his bank it wasn’t joint my, they are due to be divorced in august she has agreed to pay half as she is saying he did know about them, my partner has paid them all off I’m just wondering could we call the police or action fraud or will they not do anything
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Action Fraud hardly ever seem to do anything.
If you have a solicitor for the divorce, then these loans should be part of the agreed settlement.
Kate says
Thanks for quick reply, his wife has actually filled for divorce as he left her to be with me and had issues with alcohol which she put down as grounds for divorce which my husband has already signed and it’s been dealt with by a judge no solicitors involved. Should we call the police or do you think as he’s paid them just let it go
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I doubt the police will do anything. It was paid into your husband’s bank account – it’s his word against hers that he says she did it and he didn’t know.
R says
Hi Sara,
I’m at a loss of what to do and was wondering if you could help me. We recently reviewed our credit files as we want to buy a home and my partner has several accounts on there that he never applied for. Unpaid. He had a feeling it was his mum, he approached her and she admitted it. Upon calling the lender, they made us aware that there was actually one previously opened and paid for. As it was opened with his bank details, email and paid for prior to the unpaid loan they stated they will not deem this as fraud unless we send an arrest report. We already reported this to action fraud and have spoken to them twice, each time they informed us they would not investigate further and that we should seek legal advice. We spoke to civil legal advice as advised who then told us they do not deal with the matter. Today I spoke to the police in order to query what am arrest report was and how to get one and they told me that the only thing I could do was ask the company to report this to action fraud their end.. Which they won’t do. We don’t know how to move forward from this. We sent them the letter and the evidence of her paying funds in the day of her direct debit payments set up so that he wouldn’t notice. Any advice on what we can do?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So you have reported this to Action Fraud and the police say they won’t arrest his mum unless the lender reports the fraud?You can’t really do any more. I suggest you put in a complaint to the lender saying they are being unreasonable, you have shown them evidence his mum paid it and reported her to Action fraud, now you want the credit records deleted. Send the case to the financial ombudsman if they refuse.
ayaan ali says
Hi Sara,
I have been in a deep stress. I have been in the UK since 2011 and left UK in June 2018. Now I am moving to UK again on contract.
All of a sudden I opened and check my credit report and it says that I owe a big amount of money to banks and other lenders in the form of loans, borrowings and others. (Everything is applied and borrowed after june 2018). Also, I noticed that everyone who is asking me money is from the new banks which I never had account with when I was there.
Who should I file complaint with for the first instance? either police or any other firm like Transunion?
After getting the CRN from police, do I have to contact the banks or I need to contact them before that?
how to get rid of the loans which I dont recognise are taken by me, when I never took any loan.
Its frustrating.
Please help. Thank you.
Please help me in this. I want to get this off my name.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you go through all the steps outlined in the article above. Good luck.