Husband has stolen my identity

[SewMumSew]

Hi All,

Hoping someone with knowledge in this area can advise me

I've just discovered that my husband of 10 years has taken out various unsecured loans/credit cards in my name to the tune of £27,000. I had no knowledge of these debts and certainly didn't give my consent for any of it. I am currently on UC as not working. He appears to have been servicing these debts up till December 22 when the relationship with his business partner broke down and he left the company they were both directors of. I am in arrears with all of them as a result of this. I have asked him to leave and he is looking into his options. We are joint tenants of our Housing Association property. I have a 13 year old daughter from my first marriage who will obviously stay with me.

I have contacted all these creditors (4 in total) and they have started fraud investigations on the accounts. Do you think it'll be possible to get them written off since they were taken out fraudulently, or is my best option to go into a DRO or other debt solution?

Please be kind, I'm absolutely fucking heartbroken

Thanks

I have been the victim of fraud recently, under very different circumstances and much less money. What I was advised to do:

Report to Action Fraud. This is the body which receives reports of fraud on behalf of the Police and they will issue you with the crime number.
You will be able to register with their site to keep up to date with actions.

Contact the fraud department of your bank/s, with the crime number.
Likewise, any creditors or firms involved, as I see you have done.

JoanofAllTrades has given excellent advice to contact the HA and get his make removed from the tenancy, any bills, etc, and all the other issues, so I won’t repeat it,

Do not negotiate or take any responsibility for any of the debt, remember you are a victim of crime, as much as if he'd stolen valuable jewellery from you.

You will be offered Victim Support or similar and as you have had the most enormous shock, it would be a good idea to take it up.
Also, what JoanofAllTrades said about the counselling.

Consumer duty is a big thing right now so what has happened in the past for other posters is not necessarily what will be found in an investigation by a financial institution acting fairly now. Report to police. Report to lenders. They need to show what steps they used to confirm your identity - think monzo for example need you to both show your passport and are then video verified. This shouls be the general standard. Go to the ombudsman if needs be.

@BetterFuture1985
Unfortunately because you are married it's joint debt. You can't commit fraud against a spouse.

This is simply not true under English law. You really shouldn’t post ‘advice’ like this without proper legal knowledge. It’s unhelpful and wrong.

I don’t know how this could have happened? Wouldn’t OP have received letters from the loan companies when the loans were taken out? Wouldn’t they have called her from time to time to discuss things? Wouldn’t she have seen the loan repayments coming out of her current account?

It's really easy to get credit by online application, certainly as far as credit cards go, especially if you set up an email account with a name similar to your spouse's name. I filled in an online application a few months ago, never got a letter or a phone call or anything, and the card came in the post a few days later. The trickiest bit would be when the card came through the door and making sure that the innocent party didn't open it. Lots of people don't even get paper statements, just online ones, so how would you know?

Most people know enough about their partners to give the basic details required: name, address, date of birth, employer, approximate salary etc. If someone's net pay goes into a joint account, there are online calculators that do net to gross pay calculations. If you get paper payslips, they can even get your NINO unless you lock the payslips away.

Banks are so desperate to sell credit that they don't want signatures or even phone the other party to a joint application before approving it. When their lack of diligence enables fraud, I don't think they should expect the unwitting "victim" to be liable for the debt, although I believe the credit provider is the victim in law.

I've known a couple of cases where a partner has remortgaged or borrowed against a jointly owned home without the knowledge of the other owner. They just forged their signature on all the paperwork, and prayed they always got the post before them, or had established a relationship where they always dealt with paperwork and financial matters. One of them only found out when someone from the mortgage co rocked up at her home in a last ditch attempt to prevent repossession. I changed jobs before matters were resolved, so I never heard the outcome.

Well done on getting out OP. That's a massive step. I hope you can get this sorted

I'm really glad to read that.

I didn't have to prove anything to get a credit card. I was quite surprised, tbh.

This happened to me too. exH took out loans and racked up a massive overdraft on a "joint account" I didn't know about. He had forged my name. He did a runner and left me high and dry. There was nothing I could do about it and it took me years to pay it all off.

Please report this to the police and get all the help you can to prove that he has committed a criminal act. Otherwise you will be held liable.

Although I was specifically talking about joint debt during the marriage, which she cannot prove she did not consent to.

That is the problem with husband / wife fraud - if it's committed during the marriage, AND the bank has paid the loan into an account in the correct name AND you have no way to prove you did not consent -- it is joint debt.

This has some interesting facets in that it appears to be sole debt in HER name, so she will need to prove it was not her and she had no knowledge, which will be quite difficult if the loan was paid into an account in her name.

I come back to my original point - the OP may get the best outcome by getting her husband to agree divorce and that he takes that debt as part of the divorce (or in other words gives her a higher proportion of the assets)...

You'll probably need to report to the police & get a crime number for the debts to be written off also get copys of your actual bank transactions (even if you withdraw cash) so you can stipulate your spending habits vs's his & yes 100% absolutely there is a process for dealing with this it unfortunately happens all the time to family members/Spouses/neighbour's & you won't be held responsible (though ive heard it can affect your credit rating so check later on after its settles its been fully cleared) & take care. You will come out the other side I swear.

OP,

He couldn't care less about you and your child.

You involve the police and you completely hang him out to dry.

He is a thief who has used you.

You do WHATEVER you have to do to protect yourself.

Your child deserves this.

I am so sorry for you.

This is the time to detach from your emotions and focus on the practicalities of protecting yourself and your child from a criminal that has used you.

This happened to my friend. It was her partner. She had reems of evidence of financial physical and emotional abuse. Went through every channel. Made no difference she is still liable.

This happened to a family member. Unfortunately she had also signed loan paperwork without reading it. It was considered a joint debt as a consequence.

I’m not sure it’s police business, report it they will tell you. If it was done without your knowledge you will not be held responsible, the lender will pursue him. Your credit rating is bound to be affected for a while.

Of course it bloody is! A quick google will show you in cases like this the husband can be charged.

Op, I know you’ve been told on here that if it was paid into a joint account, you don’t have a hope in hell. Just want to post this link to show that’s absolute rubbish. Don’t let people here convince you that you don’t have a case, you absolutely do.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/case-studies/a-consumer-complains-about-a-loan-her-ex-husband-took-out-in-her-name

When the loans were paid out, did they go into an account in his name, assuming they did then it should be easier to prove that you didn't know about them.

I'd be speaking to the Police.

What a shit he is!!

Yes, this is what I keep saying. It's for the bank to choose to pursue or not. The OP's issue is with the bank for opening an account in her name without her consent.

Might be worth reading the OPs update at 3.15am yesterday before posting any more advice.

Well done.

I do hope that all goes well for you and this horrible worry is taken off your shoulders very soon.

@SewMumSew Please ignore all these posts saying you will be liable. It’s complete tosh. Report to the police, it is fraud and identity theft to boot. It’s also financial abuse.

I'm so very pleased you have left your property but please contact the HA asap because by leaving, you may have inadvertently made yourself deliberately homeless - I actually have a degree in Housing Management would you believe? But it’s also from a very, very long time ago and I would hope that things have moved in since then!

To some of the other posters on this thread - since this site is called Mumsnet, one would assume that it’s a site for females, to get advice, post funny moments, share a recipe, etc., etc. Therefore, one would further think that any and all misogyny should be checked at the door, before entering. Some of you have been downright nasty, some have shown their ignorance of what constitutes joint debt vs fraud and some of you have been downright gleeful about the prospect of OP perhaps landing in trouble herself for something that she neither did or had knowledge of.

I’ve said before, and I will repeat, what has happened to women holding other women up and actually being helpful? If you aren’t/can’t be part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. I’ve seen a lot of that in threads and I do tend to go off for periods of time, because it makes me so mad, so sad, so downhearted, that the same women who can’t wait to tear other women down, are probably parents to the next generation. What on earth are these women teaching their own children? SMDH

Well done OP onwards and upwards.

I check my credit score every couple of months and all the details of my credit cards and mortgage are on there in great detail. It means I would pick up someone doing this relatively quickly.

Should have said I only learnt to do this when a friend got caught out in a similar situation before that it wouldn’t have occurred to me to check - it was a flat mate in her case but they did have shared finances for the flat etc and a joint bank account so she struggled to prove she didn’t know.

I'm so sorry op. Good luck looking into getting this sorted.

Can I ask how you check your credit score please? I can only find websites that charge.