Fraudulent Loan and Credit Cards in My Wife's Name

[niikii]

Earlier this year, we received a letter from a debt collection agency. It said that my wife took an £8,000 loan from Sainsbury’s Bank and has not been paying the monthly installments. We were shocked because my wife never took any loan, and the address mentioned in the letter is a place we have never lived.

We immediately asked the debt collection agency to send us the loan agreement. When we received it, we noticed several red flags:

The email address on the agreement was not my wife’s.

The signature didn’t match hers.

The address was completely wrong.

The mobile number used it was not my wife's.

We reported this to Action Fraud and also contacted Sainsbury’s Bank to report the issue as fraud.

However, Sainsbury’s Bank told us that they have proof that the loan is genuine. They said:

A selfie was submitted during the loan application – and it was my wife’s photo.

A copy of her passport was used as ID.

The loan money was deposited into a bank account in my wife’s name.

After investigating and thinking deeply about how this could have happened, we discovered the likely source of the problem by checking the mobile number we found it was my nephew's mobile number.

In 2020, my nephew came to live with us. To help him start working, my wife helped him open a bank account. He also registered a Deliveroo driver account under my wife’s name because he couldn’t register one in his own name. For that, she gave him a copy of her passport, and he regularly used her selfie for verification in the app.

We now know that in January 2023, my nephew used all of my wife’s personal information (passport, selfies, and bank account) to fraudulently apply for the £8,000 loan and also took out credit cards from Tesco and other companies using her identity. He made a few payments but then stopped, and now all the debt is in my wife’s name.

Because of this, my wife’s credit score is now very low, and we are under a lot of stress.

We urgently need advice on what to do next:

How can we clear my wife’s name and credit history?

What legal steps should we take?

How can we hold my nephew accountable for this fraud?

Reporting this to the police should be your first step.

You need to report it to police as identity fraud. Assume you are no longer in contact with nephew, what about his parents?

Report your nephew to the police for stealing from your wife. See what they advise about getting the money back

need to report your nephew to the police.

I'm assuming you're in England & Wales: https://nationaldebtline.org/get-information/guides/dealing-with-fraud-ew/

First thing: DO NOT DELAY as there are time bars ie. if you take too long to report this after you find out, you could lose your rights to get these fraudulent debts written off. Speed is everything once you know what's happened.

Contact Action Fraud. Tell them everything and get a crime reference number. https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

You then need to comb through your credit reports if you haven't already and note down everything you suspect or know is fraudulent, then contact them one by one on their fraud lines so that means Sainsburys, Tesco, and all the companies where nephew has fraudulently taken out loans in her name. Tell them that the card/loan was taken out fraudulently without your knowledge or permission and that you need them to investigate.

They will each have a line to call eg. https://www.sainsburysbank.co.uk/security/security_be_aware and the number is 08085 40 50 60

Tesco Bank fraud line is 0345 366 1281https://www.tescobank.com/security/

Freeze her credit immediately so he can't do it again - see here: https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/credit-education/preventing-fraud/security-freeze/

His parents are in India.
Thank you for your advise.

Great, thank you for your detailed advise with the contact link.

Also don't fall for being guilt tripped in case his parents say - oh we'll send you the money, please don't report him to the police, you're giving him a criminal record, you're bringing shame on the family etc (I am not Indian but grew up elsewhere in Asia). He was the one who did this and gave himself a criminal record, not you by reporting it.

Simply paying the fake loans off will not help your wife's credit score if all these cards and loans were in her name and in default, because then as far as the banks were concerned it really was your wife who was irresponsible and deserved the bad credit score.

You need to get the banks to write it off as fraud and the credit bureaus to recognise the same.

If you struggle with companies some time consumer programmes can be helpful to get things in front of someone that can take action for you to get matters resolved. Radio 4s money box and you and yours shows would be two that spring to mind.

Thanks again, 🙏 I will not listen to them.

What account did the money get paid into? If it was one in your wife's name I doubt you will get very far.

I hope nephew is still in the country?

What a terrible thing for him to have done. But I have to say your wife should not have fraudulently set up a Deliveroo rider account for him.

You hear of terrible stories of criminals doing deliveroo under someone else's name. He could've nicked the details of his customers or stolen from their homes, or worse?

How about the customer when they expect a female rider and see him standing there?

If you tell the police that part they will not be impressed.

@DiscoBob the OP's wife was foolish giving nephew her details to set up the rider account but that in no way can be construed that she was giving permission or even having any suspicion that he was going to take out fraudulent credit in her name.

If he asked for her details to take out one fraudulent credit card, which she gave him, and then he took out 10 more fraudulent credit cards, then yes you could say she was negligent in doing so, and should have known or suspected that he might use her identity for further frauds.

The loan money was deposited into a bank account in my wife’s name.

I missed this part though - did she know about this account or have any access to it? Or was it also opened fraudulently by the nephew without her knowledge?

How about the customer when they expect a female rider and see him standing there?

I've had this happen twice, but there's not much you can do about it in the moment - I just took the bag, gave the driver my code and he drove off. Interestingly, once I was expecting a man to deliver and it was an older woman instead (I think his mum was covering for him!)

I know that. But it was still a foolish thing to do and fraudulent in its own right. It doesn't excuse what he did of course. However she also did something wrong, and consequently this happened.

The problem your story has is that your wife has committed fraud by allowing your nephew to set up a working arrangement that he was not permitted to do, using her bank account to pay ‘his’ wages into.

The nephew could easily tell the police that both he and your wife are complicit, it was a joint loan etc, look at the evidence, we ‘shared’ a bank account already.

How did they write to you about the default when the address on the loan etc was a different one?
What address was used and how was it verified that your wife lived there? She wouldn't have been on the electoral roll

Yes, it was my wife's account because when he came to the UK, he was doing delivery work under her name. Therefore, the money had to go into her account. That's why I opened the account for him.

Are you saying the loan monies were paid into your wife's account and she didn't notice?

You facilitated him working illegally then?
Whole situation sounds dodgy

Was the nephew here legally? And permitted to work? This sounds more and more like a bad, bad can of worms.

So was he working here illegally then? This whole situation sounds crazy.

You're going to have real problems sorting this out and disentangling your wife, because she has committed fraud too in setting up the accounts.

What a mess. I'm sorry this happened to you, it sounds like a huge headache.

It's going to be hard to clear your wife's name because she has acted fraudulently as well and, legally, she did receive the proceeds of the loan. The bank surely are not obliged to repay that given legally she had the money.

Are you in contact with your nephew? I would try to sort out repayment directly with him / his family.

The damage to credit history is likely not repairable, will need to wait for time to pass to drop off her credit history.

Keep your financial affairs straightforward and legal in future.

if the money was paid into her account why didn’t she notice an unexplained credit? What happened to that money? I don’t think with what you have posted it is a clear fraud as the bank were satisfied as paid into an account which matched her details.