02 ruined my daughters life

[Wenders54]

Hi I am wondering can you help My daughter was the victim of identity theft and fraud 6 years ago when she was about to buy a house and then found out someone had taken out finance in her name and she could not get the mortgage. She had to wait 6 years to get this cleared and it only cleared 2 months ago . But the prices of the houses have rocketed compared to what they were 6 years ago and she is a single girl on her own . She just found out the day after she seen a house she could afford that the same thing has happened again . She is beyond stressed. She has tried everything ringing debt collection agency and 02 and credit reference agencies and Action Fraud . Nothing has worked . She is beside herself with worry as this coukd render her unable to get a home afain for another 6 years and by then she definitely will not be ablw to afford a home . 02 have done this twice . Given out phones in her name and ruined her credit . They mess her around from department to department and dint give her any response. Ladt time it happened they did that fir ove a year and her health was very bad and she had to start anti depressants and go to GP snd mental health practitioner. We are desperate . Can you please help . Time is of the essence as we don't want this on her file when she is applying for a mortgage after Christmas .

Don’t count on getting a response here. Someone took an O2 mobile contract out at my 88 year old mothers address, I have written to complaints twice, no response, called them and no action taken and wrote directly to Lutz at the above email, not even an acknowledgement. Nada, zilch, zero from every department at O2.

Diabolical.

I've been trying since September.

I should now be in the timescales where Ofcom will accept a complaint.

Get a police crime number first

This happened to my partner. We only realised when we went to take out finance on a car and his credit score had tanked.
He contacted the credit score company not sure if clearscore or Experian but they did their own investigation and found it was not him and fixed his credit score by the next month. 6 years is a long time.

i second this. Amazing how quickly companies sort stuff once they hear from a journalist.

Try Katherine Denham at the Times.

Doesn’t add up. I had an incorrect entry from virgin and it was removed by them. And why wasn’t your daughter regularly checking her credit report?

Try Shari Vaal at radio 4 You and Yours, she’s been investigating fraud for a while.

Are you sure your daughter is being truthful. Having to wait 6 years for it to be sorted points to a defaulted account rather than identity theft.
my daughter has recently been a victim of identity theft where credit had been applied for and given, bank accounts opened and a phone contract taken out.
This took less than a month to sort out and get everything removed from her credit score. She also had free access to CIFAS to double her security in the future.

Do people not check their credit file? My banking apps show me my credititors, closed accounts, and status. It's not hard these days.

Many of the banking apps have a credit score facility (Trustpilot is one) - you can see all open and closed credit accounts in your name and the balance . She needs to keep on top of this and act quickly.

This happened to me. But with Sky, it's a pain, but it was sorted out within a week or two I don't think she is telling the truth. Or maybe she doesn't understand the system properly. Her broker should be able to point her in the right direction to getting it sorted out. It really was just a phone call to sky once I had the police report.

Contact Experian and do a victim of fraud referral

Sorry not read everyone else’s replies.

I assume as this has now happened twice it is someone she knows.

Therefore her first port of call is the police and she needs to tell them the name of the person (I’m guessing an ex boyfriend).

I’m sure you’ve done it already but phone the bank and cancel her card etc immediately as well as any companies that she thinks have been involved.
Tell them that the police are involved.

It’s one thing to try and take a loan out in someone’s name but they must have also had her bank details etc to set up a direct debit payment etc and so this has to be someone close to her and she needs to have them arrested over it else it’s just going to keep happening.

I'm so sorry OP. You can go to the credit agencies and put a stop on credit being taken out in your name. There is more than one agency, and if she wants credit you will have to have it removed in order for that to happen. I know of someone who had a password put on their credit file, years ago, that came up when you searched, and that stopped credit going through automatically, which seems to me like something that should be on all credit files.

I know someone this happened to and they managed to get it removed straight away. She should not have accepted it staying on her file. She needs to be persistent. A Google search will tell you what to do in this situation but you absolutely do not just accept it and wait 6 years for it to come off the file. She needs to get credit karma for starters so she knows if anything is taken out in her name immediately and can address it

Firstly you need to contract the police about the fraud. The credit agencies who should remove the adverse credit with evidence that it's fraud. There are also some sub prime lenders who offer mortgages to those with adverse credit but it should not come to that

Or Moneybox. A great consumer rights programme on BBC sounds.

Get her to write to her MP and ask for urgent assistance, they can be very helpful.

I had defaults and lots of financial issues of my own doing and sorted it and still got bought a house within the same year. Something isn't right, she's either not handled it right or is lying to you. All it takes is a few phone calls to sort things and have thinks removed if it's a genuine mistakes never mind illegal actions

But not for an innocent victim, they can get them removed as soon as they flag them up. It is an offender who has to wait 6 years.

You can become culpable if you are aware this has happened and don’t report it immediately. Say they were sending bills to her address and she just ignored them or something.

So did the person who did it give your daughters address or a made up one?

Did they forge your daughter's ID?

Once is unlucky but twice is mad.

Something not right here. When she gets it sorted out this time I would suggest she checks her credit file at least monthly. I'm with Credit Karma and they send me an email if something nee appears on my file and also an email regularly to check. Takes seconds and means you are on the ball straight away if anything has gone wrong.

I had a similar proble. But not as serious. I signed up to clearscore and experian, looked at what was on file and cleared my credit history. My issue was also a phone (vodafone) that used to be a work phone. My old company had not removed it from my name and some run up a massive bill in my name. I provided all details to Vodafone and they cleared ir from my records.