People who moved into my old house have stolen my identity-rant!

[ames]

Just wanting to have a rant really. Moved house 6 months ago and the people who moved into our old housing asociaion house are using our names to obtain credit etc. Today I discovered from by chance that they have ordered and received goods on a catalogue that I placed my 1st order wih shortly before I moved. I did ring the catalogue company and give them my new address as my 1st order hadn't arrived but they still sent it my old address, it was returned undelivered because no-one was living there at the time and yet they still accepted orders after this.

That matter is being 'dealt' with by the fraud investigation department which is a hassle, I can't get any credit because of them neither can my dh, the police won't do anything, they have told us that it's nothing to do with us?!?

Presumably I'll be able to sort this out eventually but now dh and I have to prove who we are to get any credit or even apply for our credit file and they are still living in the house, getting anything they can in my name and I have just sat like most decent people trying to juggle my money to pay all my bills, be able to eat look after my kids and these people 'steal' things (luxuries that I dont have) using my name and get away with it.

It makes me so angry, sorry major rant over! Thanks

oh ames, there really are some horrible people out there. This is a nasty thing to have done to you. And it's not like you don't know where they are. Will the police get involved ?

ames, if you go to credit expert monitoring service, youmight be able to access your file for a month for free, then they bill you for the others if you choose to remain with them.

It is an eye opener to find out what is in the file and well worth it, esp. wrong names and addresses attached to your name.

Do have a look at that if you are able to, the best thing is you can contest anything and everything in it.

Massive sympathies. Last year a similar thing happened to my grandad, who has Alzheimer's and had moved into a nursing home. They (whoever did this) saw the empty house, tried to set up a redirectio with Royal Mail (that's where they failed as our redirection arrived on the same day and the RM rang and questioned us about why there were two), opened credit cards, savings accounts, had the BT line reconnected (in order to gain a utility bill), got a fake driving licence and generally caused havoc. We keot getting letter starting, 'Dear Mr X, Thank you for opening your on line account with X Bank' which was so ridiculous with my grandad unable to recognise his own children, it was almost funny in a very dark way. I spent last summer 8 months pregnant, with a 20 month old, very hot and writing daily letters to various organisations as well as spending 3 hours in a police statio, with no net result other than my grandad not having to pay anything back.

BT were the worst by far as, even with a crime number, they kept re-connecting the line whenever the fraudsters asked; they told me that they were unable to tell anyone that they couldn't do it! They also continued to reply to my letters which stated 'My grandad has Alzheimer's, is in a nursing home and cannot remember his own name and has sold his house and yet you continue to bill him for a service he did not request', with letters addressed to him AT HIS OLD ADDRESS!!! They even started to send threatening letters about his non-payment!

I know how frustrated you must be, our one consolation was that my grandad would not need any credit in the future.

I think you have every reason to rant.

Have you contatced CIFAS by the way? They may be able to help.

Thanks for the sympathy and advice.
Clayhead - it is so frustrating and I imagine even more difficult for you to try and sort out on your grandads behalf. The companies always seem to go to great lengths to check that I am who I say I am and yet obviously not such great lengths with those commiting the fraud.

Apparantly my ex next door neighbour had had a few items delivered to her house as the people responsible where not in to recieve the goods and had also attempted to alert the catologue on several occasions. No wonder catalogues have to charge so much for their goods.

The police are adamant that its nothing to do with us (afterall it's only our names and credit reputation and us the companies come after for the bill!) We have been in touch with CIFAS but that was for credit card applications in my husbands name so I guess I will have to get in touch with them about this latest episode.

Have also applied for my credit file (couldn't get the free one I think because CIFAS are involved) and will then set about getting in touch with any companies involved to remove the defaults and such like! Such a lot of time and hassle I could really do without.

Oooops I'm ranting again!! Perhaps I'll just nip round the road and chin them one! I expect the police will think it's something to do with me then! Maybe not such a good plan!

Ames, the aqmount of times I've started a conversation with, 'I'm calling on behalf of my grandad who has Alzheimer's disease and does not know who/where he is' only to have someone say, 'What you need to do is get him to give us a call himself' ARGHHHHHH!

Totally agree with you that companies seem to check up on me to the millionth degree but obviously not on those committing the fraud!

Good luck, I know exactly how tiresome it is trying to sort it out.

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Clayhead I sympathise with your trouble with BT. I found them hopeless when we moved to our current home. As my DH works from home we decided to pay to take our phone number with us. Arranged it all accordingly. But because our new house had been used as a sales office by the builders it already had a number. BT refused several times to disconnect this number. Apparently I did not have the authority to request disconnection in the house I own. Went on for ages with me trying to persuade the builders to contact BT etc. Not in the same scale as your troubles of course but unfortunately not surprised by what you have stated.

Ha ha! SO with BT, you cannot disconnect a line on a house you do own but you can connect a line to a house you don't! Excellent.

Have moved house 5 times in last 10 years and BT have cocked it up each time.

Over my grandad, I eventually wrote to head office and customer services. Only reply I got was after 6 weeks, from customer services, saying they had a back log (addressed to my grandad in his sold house, obviously), heard nothing since. I got so fed up I wrote to 'Dear Jessica' in the Telegraph's Saturday Money section; she said it wasn't really her area but made a phone call anyway and it all got sorted. So it was great that she got it sorted but annoying that I couldn't as a mere customer. If I could, I'd ditch BT completely but we can't where we live.
Oh, and despite my 3 hour trip to the police station, in August in the boiling weather, with a 20 month old and 8 month pregnant me, they told me that they know all about the address in London where the fraud people tried to redirect the mail and them actually having pictures of the cheeky bastard who went into the Nationwide to try and find why he hadn't got his credit card but can't do anything. Great.

Realise I sound like a sarky cow in the last post, sorry...

Sympathies, Ames, and everyone suffering from 'Imposter Syndrome'. A couple of years ago I kept getting letters from insurance companies saying I'd been involved in road accidents, and I even had a threatening letter from a firm of solicitors. Someone was using all my car and insurance details to put in false claims.

As dh was working overseas at the time, I was quite scared that someone seemed to have all this knowledge about me. As others found, the police just weren't interested, even though, like Twiglett, I assumed it was a crime of fraud.

Clayhead sounds like you had a really hard time. And don't wory about the sarcasm - some did pass my lips at the time. I was pregnant when we moved so was a bit like the "pregnant and angry" thread.

Actually though it does sort of add up. Because their spiel to me was that the line wasn't in my name and so nothing to do with me - it just happened to be my house but so what? So theoretically I could go around requesting lines wherever I wanted as happened in your case.

this has happened to me - and I hadn't even moved house. Someone used my name and address to open bank accounts and then bounced cheques all over the place. I got loads of threatening letters demanding repayment even though I kept explaning that since I had never borrowed any money I couldn't repay it. The worst was the Money Store who made agressice phone calls telling me that if I couldn't prove I hadn't cashed the cheque (and how exactly are you supposed to prove a negative) then I would have to repay it and if I didn't they would send bailiffs round.

It's currently all gone quiet although this has happened before. last time I sent a snotty letter back threatening them with legal action for harrassment (a barrister I work with improved my original draft such that it was on a par with their threats) That seems to have worked for now.

I sympathise with the difficulty of getting credit - I've been turned down for store cards since so have stopped trying to get them - fortunately I don't need to so it's been hassle rather than a real problem.

I didn't bother to go to the police, the crime was against the banks not me and they already had plenty of solicitors and private investigators involved - I know because I was telephoned by most of them.

It was very unsettling though - particularly the thought that some loan shark might appear on the doorstep or follow the children home from school or something (and this was all threatened). I think the banks should take more responsibility - after all, they offer the credit to the wrong person in the first place which is what starts this all off.

Well at least I'm not alone!
Heard nothing back from the lady at the catalogue (as promised) today but not really very suprised. I will wait to see my credit file before I ring her as I'm not sure what they will have recorded against me on that.
Some of these stories sound much worse than mine it just seems stupid that the police won't get involved.

My mum had this recently. A bill was addressed to my mum but at a house opposite, because my uncle is her postie, he assumed that the wrong address was on it so popped it through my mums door. It was a catologe bill for £400 of stuff that the woman over the road had ordered in my mums name. Appartently when my mum phoned up the woman had returned all the goods (feeling guilty??) but it upset my mum.

It happened to me too. My upstairs neighbours were intercepting my post (ten years ago) and the police would do nothing. I did sort all the financial stuff (after endless hassle) with no adverse stuff on my credit record, and my name eventually turned up a year later on a passport of an unknown Algerian who was travelling via Amsterdam to London. Didn't take a genius to work out that this was drug trafficking. And the police could have sorted it all easily but didn't care. In the current climate it is a terrifying thought to think that this could happen - you could end up in Guantanamo Bay.
BTW Ames, I am a journalist and good at putting hte frighteners on press offices etc etc and would be prepared to give it a go on your behalf if you don't get any joy any other way - I just say I'm doing a feature on identity stealing for the Mail and they start cooperating....

I also had someone gathering parking tickets all over London saying that they lived at my address, and when I called to say it wasn't me, had people with very bad attitudes telling me I had to prove I wasn't the person named and that I didn't own the said car - despite DVLA happily telling me that it was registered to someone else. I told them to piss off and I'd happily see them in court. They never came back.