Fraudulent account??? Unknown debt?

[Makehaywhilethesunshines]

Hi,
I received a debt collectors letter today advising me that they had purchased my ‘debt’ from Natwest. It didn’t give any other information regarding the debt and they were in my opinion suspicious on the phone so i did not give them any personal details other than those in the letter, so they refused to give me further details.
I rang Natwest who confirmed i have no debt with them.
I did a credit cheque report online and a Natwest account was listed with a debt of £281 and the account is in default (I have not received any correspondances for this whatsoever even though according to the credit report it is attached to my address).
I went back to the debt collection companies website and have eventually found out the debt is linked to this account - defaulted in Jan but its listed previous activity/payment last year. I have no knowledge/access to the account it links to so dont understand what is going on...
Is it possible it is a fraudulent account? But as it seems attached to my address why have I not received any post for it?
Natwest arent able to look into it until they open in the morning so was just after any advice to help me sleep!!

Nightmare stuff, it must be fraud.

Call their fraud unit (every bank has one)

Has someone with the same name as you opened the account, then moved away - thus the debt collecting agency’s have traced you and saddled you with the debt? Just because you have the same name

Are you married, have kids? Most likely to be someone you know who has easy access to your passport.

When I say
Moved away, left there own address/ moved but not informed the bank. Then the bank sell the debt on without an address, so the debt collecting agent track down
Makehaywhilethesunshines
But of course find you not the one that left the debt

I reckon it’s mistaken identity rather than fraud,

It is possible that it could relate to a student account i opened ten years ago (its the only account i have previously held that could genuinely be linked to me) - however i have not accessed this account in ten years and the default note on the credit report says it defaulted in January this year. And as i said it appears there has been payments made last year (according to the debt collection people). So maybe someone has recently been accessing this old account. But i still dont understand why i havent been written to with a default notice.

DH had a default on his file last year which definitely wasn't him (there was a linked address too, we'd never lived there but used to know someone dodgy who did). He'd not received a single letter about it either but we assume that'd because they'd all gone to the fraudsters house.

He informed the debt collection agency, reported it to action fraud and gave them the crime ref. They wanted to see a council tax bill or something similar to make doubly certain he'd not been living there and then they removed it all from his file.

In my googling about stuff like this, I also came across people who had something like due to a case of mistaken identity. Someone had left some debts, and they mistakenly got put onto the file of someone with the same name, same or similar date of birth and a nearby address to the last known one.

Are you sure there's no other addresses you don't recognise on your credit report. Sometimes they're in another section. Does it definitely say this debt is linked to your current address? It could be someone who moved into one of your previous addresses used your details.