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 .

It’s not quite adding up that this would take six years to sort out, would stop her getting a mortgage or that the exact same thing would happen just as she is trying to buy a house for the second time

6 years is the time limit on bad credit. Bad credit expires.

Similar happened to my friend; She can go to a mortgage broker, they will search lenders who will lend. Not all will but there are deals out there.

But she does need to clean this up - as she didn’t get it removed - did she pay it?

Once in contact with the company you are liable - did she ignore all the emails?

You need a strong letter to O2 explaining the issues and see where you get.

Are you sure she’s telling the absolute truth? Waiting for 6 years wasn’t necessary if she took action and now another 6 years potentially. Before you start contacting press I’d make very sure the story is 100% accurate.

This happened to us and we also lost a house. Multiple lines of credit taken out AND. A ccj awarded.

Whilst stressful, it was easily sorted and once sorted has no long term impact on your credit rating- it’s simply removed. Action fraud were excellent. We also have a marker for future fraud which makes it slightly harder for us to get our own credit but only admin wise.

we bought another house shortly after as the first had fallen through.

as others have said the not being able to buy a house makes no sense- not least because multiple mobile phone records is hardly a credit problem it itself 🤨 as well as it should’ve been sorted and had no impact after that.

Fraud doesn’t stay on your credit file as bad credit.
C’mon, who on earth would/ should tolerate that?!? You’re a victim of a crime and your life is impacted for 6 years as though you actually committed it?!
Your credit file is updated and it’s removed when you provide evidence it’s fraud (your action fraud crime number and confirmation from the company usually)

edited to add- I know this is basically what you’re saying but wanted to emphasise that this would 100% not be a impact of fraud

You need to speak to Experian.

Because it was fraud. Action fraud, the credit reference agencies and the courts sorted it out fairly quickly and cancelled the fraudulent transactions showing on our credit files/ the court system. There is no record of them after that it’s like they didn’t happen

OP, i work for O2. And have shared this post on Workplace which is the business version of Facebook. Hopefully you will get some help.

This sounds mad. Incredibly unlucky with such devastating results. Has she spoken to CAB to find out how to minimise the impact of the identity theft?

I’m not understanding why you waited the 6 years it takes to simply “drop off” the credit history.
If you are the victim of fraud you report it to the police. You get a crime ref number and then you open a dispute with the credit agency.
I was the victim of a similar fraud, except with catalogue bills that I had never even heard of. This was 14 years ago. I reported it to the police, didn’t take them long to confirm it was indeed fraud, they gave me a ref number and I reported it to Experian. Took a couple of months but Experian removed it all from my credit file and my score shot back up

Is that supposed to be must have been going on for months?

credit rating agencies are updated monthly so the correction went into the next upload- that could’ve been up to a month. It probably was. As I say, we lost the house, the vendors wouldn’t wait and sold it to someone else. As I said, whilst stressful it was just phone calls and sending evidence etc. the ccj was the easiest that was sorted as the court has made major mistakes granting it in the first place, even if it had been a genuine debt

Because very very very few people do so (checking their credit report)?

It does sound a bit odd OP, for the same thing to happen twice, both times before applying for a mortgage.

If it were such an issue last time, perhaps there was an element of her giving away personal information that she shouldn't have done? Did ypu report it to the police? Eg, elderly person gets tricked into giving someone over the phone their PIN number.

Fraud and theft can happen to anyone, but as far as I know, for identity theft to be carried out then they need to be able to get hold of a fair amount of personal information. Your daughter may benefit from learning how to protect her identity, etc.

She needs to think about changing her email address, phone number, online passwords. Really have a look at the emails she's replying to asking for verification. Destroy bank statements etc. Is all her ID accounted for? Sign up to credit checks. Is there any friends/partner/family that could be taking advantage? Change security questions, eg don't use mothers maiden name, use a made up name.

An old address- that was part of the fraud.

and from reading up and talking to people, it’s a common one. Although it was a mix of a fraud and an unscrupulous debt collection agency (although when would they be anything else)

Complain to Watchdog!

No you wouldn’t. It was only a CCJ. Something like 800 were granted in the same sitting as our one!

if the company in question don’t do anything to enforce a CCj no one else does either.

Someone attempted to open a credit card in my name and I had to get this hard search removed

I actually phoned the company and spoke to a very nice guy who was absolutely certain it was me who applied for a credit card with them.

He said it had been done on line on a certain date and at a certain time

I started laughing and assured him that on that exact date and that exact time I knew exactly what I was doing and was holding the living proof that it most certainly was not me At that exact time and that exact date I was laid flat on my back having a CS and it was my ds’s birth date and time.
I offered to send him a picture of ds’s hospital wrist band with his date and time of birth on
But he believed me and managed to wipe the search from my records