AIBU to take this to court, or am I jumping the gun?

[milkmilklemonade12]

I put this issue on mumsnet about 3 weeks ago, and essentially my DH had a phone contract opened in his name fraudulently. Action fraud were called, and the company (ID warehouse for Carphone Warehouse) were informed and they said they were investigating it and not to worry, they'd contact us within 28 days.

This morning, DH had an experian alert. They have placed this on his credit report as repeated non payment, and his credit report has plummeted from 995 to 262. All the actions are them. 5 different counts. He rang them up today when they opened, and they said they were still investigating it and that they'd get back to him within 48 hours to let him know how they were getting on, but that actually; it can take 40 days to investigate. We got another reference number for the call that took place, and reassurances from the fraud team that it was being dealt with.

DH was at work the day the account was opened and can prove it (clock machine) and it absolutely wasn't him.

AIBU to want to take this to court to get this resolved? Surely you can't just put false information on someone's record without finishing investigating it?! I do have anxiety problems, so I could be jumping the gun but we are both so so upset and angry. It feels like innocent until proven guilty.

[milkmilklemonade12]

We have filed a complaint with the financial ombudsman by the way; well DH is doing that now.

[Palomb]

Can't you make experian aware that this is fraudulent activity?

[AnchorDownDeepBreath]

Unfortunately, this isn't as easy as it should be.

Someone opened a Littlewoods account in my name - despite me having contacted them hundreds of times over the past five years, and the Police writing to them on my behalf, they still haven't removed it from my credit report.

Luckily, phone companies are usually better. The account will show on his credit file until it's proved that it wasn't his, then it will be removed without a trace, so don't panic about that for now.

The Carphone Warehouse will be reviewing CCTV footage if it was collected in store, and working out what card details were used, what delivery dates, etc. They will need to collect enough information to be sure that it wasn't your DH or someone acting on his behalf. They may ask your husband to go sign a form confirming that it wasn't him. Once the investigation is complete, if it's found in your favour (and it should be!), it will all disappear at the same time.

If it was 3 weeks ago that this occurred, I'd now write to the relevant company, summarising what has happened and your communications with them so far, and including proof that your husband was at work on that day to help with their investigation. Request that they contact you within 7 days of receiving the letter.

You might want to keep your FOS complaint for if they fail to resolve this properly. For now, your complaint would be unlikely to be upheld because the current state of play is that the contract is your husbands' - they are investigating if it actually is his and will remove the data when it's proved that it's not, but until that point, they are reporting what they believe to be factual information.

Taking it to court at this point will just waste court fees. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a waiting game.

Try not to stress, though - I know it sucks, but it's very fixable.

[AnchorDownDeepBreath]

Oh, and he can flag this to Experian and the other credit agencies - report it as fraudulent. They will refer this to the Carphone Warehouse and ask them if it is legit. This won't necessary mean that it's removed, but it puts some additional pressure on the CPW from a different angle.

[scarednoob]

The best thing to do in the short term is to write to experian. They will put a note on the file to explain it so that if you need credit until Carphone get off their arses, it won't be a problem for anything.

[milkmilklemonade12]

Yes will file with Experian, and write to Carphone so thank you for those suggestions.

We were meant to be getting a mortgage at the back end of this year, I bet that won't happen now.

[scarednoob]

Experian have a help line and some useful points on their website; have a read there - here is a sample

www.experian.co.uk/consumer/questions/fraud/fraud-5.html

[VimFuego101]

There are other companies besides experian. When you've resolved this, i would make sure you obtain all of your credit reports and request any corrections needed.

[MrsPJones]

The 3 main credit rating agencies are CallCredit (Noddle), Experian and equifax, so when this is all sorted you want to check your reports with all 3.

[goddessofsmallthings]

It's my understanding that if you take this matter to court now the Financial Ombudsman will not be able to investigate your dh's complaint.

If the outcome of the FO's investigation is not satisfactory to your dh, there will be no bar to him proceeding with action in the civil courts.