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 .

Do you know how common that is amongst people who are in that sort of debt? 🤣 it’s more common that not.

you sound very suspicious that I’ve made it up, I don’t really care, but I can assure you ccjs don’t work the way you think they do.

I don’t understand, and the same thing has happened to me twice. O2 and Vodafone have given credit, lots of debt accumulated in my name and ruined my credit file, but only temporarily. I was passed around a bit and had to make quite a few phone callls and report the fraud to the credit agencies but it only took a few months and now it’s like they were never there and my credit score is back up 99%…. Why it would take 6 years is beyond me.

Happens every day.

Be careful OP posting your dd's name isn't wise, especially on an identity theft thread. People on Mumsnet don't normally post actual names, they say dd/ds/dh ddog etc. Maybe be extra careful about sharing any names on a public board if your family has been a victim of identity theft?

Nicole? How are you going to do identity fraud from the name Nicole being typed on mumsnet 🤣😂😭 mad

She should've been able to get the first fraud removed from her credit file well before the six years were up. I'm baffled that didn't happen.

Unless she knows the person taking out the credit in her name and it's not straightforward?

Now this story the Daily Mail could actually pick up on and be useful!!

The same thing has happened to me - someone took a phone contract out in my name, didn't pay it and now my credit record is impacted. 02 told me they would sort it out. I've spoken to O2 so many times, have emailed their complaints dept and had nothing. It's so frustrating.

This is a waste of time. He, along with any CEO, will have a member of staff (at least one) who sifts through emails and prioritises emails. This one would be farmed off to the relevant department, never seen by the CEO.

You don’t know much about identify fraud OR ccjs then?

I’d suggest if you don’t know much about identity fraud the the posters who are suggesting (multiple times) that swapping first names on an online forum will cause it are demonstrating a lack of knowledge.

Even if it were a realistic possibility, and as I do well know there are plenty of easier ways to take out debt in someone else’s name

Do you have anything useful or reasonable to say @policetimeisprecious ?

presume you also don’t know what “serious extensive fraud” is really like but I can assure you it’s not being alerted by a mortgage broker and making phone calls

Calm down dear. It's simply weird to post a first name Nicole or whatever else it is (or indeed isn't) It's not Mumsnet etiquette and simply sounds odd on a thread about identity theft 🙄makes me think this is a weeeeeeeeee windup . Anyways, best of luck to Nicole.

This is very odd - this happened to my partner several years ago, a mobile phone account and a Very account. He reported to both companies - they logged his details with a fraud database that meant when we re-mortgaged he had to go into a branch with photo id and prove it was him. No impact on his credit report - as wasn’t his debt so the companies removed any trace of the accounts.

He had the same thing happen a few years later, as the fraud database entry doesn’t last forever, again all sorted and no impact on him.

I don’t understand how this impacted your daughter’s credit record if it was not her debt, she reported it to the police, the companies and fraud database 6 years ago and again now?

When we applied for our first joint mortgage the credit report showed DH had a defaulted mortgage! He didn't and would've been around 10 years old at the time it was listed. It was a pain but we got it sorted in about 6 weeks. It's not O2 you need to go to it's the credit agency. Experian were fantastically helpful. If the prior debt wasn't hers she wouldn't have had to wait six years, so that's odd.

Shit. I wouldn't have done that.

You need to contact I've of the credit agencies and raiser a fraud complaint they can get it taken off

Two things you can do as well as being much firmer with O2:
Sign up for credit monitoring - if it's genuinely happened twice like this, my worry would be that someone's targeting her either because her details have been leaked or even for personal reasons.
Speak to mortgage brokers. There are ways of working around a bad credit file, especially when there's a legitimate reason and it's shocking if this hasn't been resolvable in 6 years! You may have less choice of lenders but it should be possible, especially if someone can act as a guarantor.