DH has just had his identity stolen!

[FattyAl]

My DH arrived home the other day and had a new driving licence waiting for him….weird as the old one hadn’t expired but we didn’t think much of it.
Then a few days later a letter arrived from a car insurance company saying our email was wrong and we needed to get in touch. We phoned them and it is for a car we don’t own so we said not us, cancelled the policy.
Then today a V5 and a credit agreement arrived for a £40000 car!
we have told the police who were hopeless but what do we actually need to do!?!? Help!

Contact CIFAS

Get a credit check done immediately. Find out what you owe where.
Add a flag on the main credit agency (Experian) and they will put an additional password on there too.

Once known, contact police again with everything. And contact all businesses that have you having credit with them.

I can't think of anything else but that's what I'd do in the immediate term.

Maybe contact action fraud for advice 0300 123 2040
https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/what-is-action-fraud

Thank you. He’s looked on Experian and credit rating is ok but I’m guessing that’s because he hasn’t “defaulted” yet. Is there something else we are supposed to do on there?
is there a possibility they are setting up bank accounts and things!?
im petrified!

I think he has set this up as cover for when a load of prostitutes contact you on SM telling you about your husband etc etc. He is operating several steps ahead of you.

Riiiiiiiight 🙄

What?!?!?

Really not at all helpful!!

There's always one. 🙄

In the real world, he should contact his bank immediately. They should also br able to advise on which agencies to contact to report fraud/identity theft too.

Yeah must be that. These are famously things that prostitutes and husbands do, despite there being absolutely no discernible benefits to them in doing so.

It’s not about his credit rating. It will also show all open credit agreements/bank accounts/loans etc so you can see if there’s anything there that you don’t recognise

ActionFraud is definitely somewhere you need to speak with asap.

Someone can have y life if they want

Agreed. You can also appeal and get some great support if anything flags.

They don't update automatically and can update every week or month depending on which you use.

Open a free trial account with checkmyfile and check for recent searches.
Contact the car finance company and any other companies that have done searches and let them know they were fraudulent.
The sooner you deal with it the more limited the impact.

On his credit report does it show recent searches he doesn't recognise? For a 40k car they'd have run a credit check which should show as a hard search I'd think?

Definitely speak to action fraud!

😅

Don't worry about it too much OP, if you get onto it first thing tomorrow any fraud should be easily sorted.

Does your husband know how these details have been retrieved? I would definitely have a think. Might be worth changing any or all secure passwords you use for banking, online shopping, email etc.

If your laptop or phones could be compromised by clicking an unknown link or any other way I would definitely look at getting them professionally cleaned by an IT specialist.

Sorry this has happened OP

This happened to me some years ago. The police can't do anything except be sympathetic, because the crime is the fraud, not the identity theft. So it is the business(es) that have lost money who have to pursue the police case. In my case there were a lot of low level credits taken out, and it was a matter of seconds to work out how and who - but the companies didn't care and spent all their time wasting mine by making me evidence that I hadn't done it. Cos like, all the items were delivered to one address that I didn't live at, and the accounts were opened in a name that was nearly mine but not mine, and with entirely the wrong birthdate and my voting address (which they claimed to have checked when the accounts were opened) was not the one on the accounts! Took me six months to unravel it all. And the police really were sympathetic - one of them had had it happen to them as well. But as I said, it is the fraud against the company that is the crime, not the theft of his identity. Good luck - I hope you get it resolved quicker than I did.

Thank you all so much.
At least the being one step ahead of the prostitutes gave me a chuckle! Pretty sure I don’t need to LTB just yet! 😂😂
Everywhere is shut now so going to ring round in the morning and will definitely have a think about how this could have happened! He does have endless apps so maybe we need to have a digital clear out.
Thanks everyone.

CIFAS

This is exactly their job to stop fraudulent applications. I have a flag on my profile from some minor fraud years ago and now every time I apply for anything- phone contracts, credit cards even our mortgage it never goes through automatically and is always referred to an underwriter before it's approved. They usually contact me too to make sure it's definitely me making the application. So worth doing for the future regardless.

What I dont get us why the fraudster would have the documents they need sent to your address? Unless I'm missing something.

Because it not always workouts. DH had loan application on his name, misspelled as well, and bank called him.
We think we know where his data leaked due to the spelling mistake, but can't 100% that it was the "have you had an accident" firm....

This is why we need ID here. You shouldn't be able to do this without actually proving who you are with difficult to fake standardised ID.