Identity theft

Mark M

Mark M

Mark M

Soldato
Joined
6 Jan 2006
Posts
3,435
Location
Newcastle upon Tyne
I received a letter in the post yesterday from EE "welcoming me as a customer" Thought it was pretty odd namely because I haven't recently become a customer of theirs so rang them to see if it was a mistake but nope some blighter has opened 2 acconuts in my name. After a lengthy conversation with a call centre worker who didnt understand my problem I eventually got through to someone with a bit of sense who has frozen the accounts and passed the info onto their fraud team. The guy I spoke to confirmed that the accounts had been set up with my name and address (obviously) but my DOB was also correct however the bank details on the account were not mine so fingers crossed they havent got my bank details.

Today I have received another 2 letters of the same nature from Tesco Mobile! So rang them also and explained that they are fraudulent accounts and they have also been passed onto their fraud team.

Im wondering what I can do to stop this if anything?

I have just signed up to the free trial on Experian and there have been recent credit checks completed by Orange, Hutchinson 3G and EE. Im now expecting a similar welcome letter from Orange tomorrow.

I have contacted the non-emergency police number but they said if the mobile fraud departments are dealing with it the police dont need to get involved?

So, someone has my name, address and DOB but not my bank details. Any ideas where they might have got this information from? I am a company director but not sure if my DOB is available via a credit check from Companies House or similar?

Im not aware of losing any personal documents as everything gets shredded and we havent been burgled or anything like that.

I have a linkedin account and also an Evernote account which have both been recently hacked, but not sure if they would have my DOB or home address?

Im going to give my bank a call in the morning just to see if there is anything they can add onto my account perhaps as a safeguard but any other help appreciated :mad:
 
Happened to me, and I was religious about shredding everything. They got everything from mine, including my bank account password (How could they even get that, even I do not know it and end up guessing). Now I do not bother shredding anything. Whats the point, they already have everything. Its such a horrible feeling.

Luckily my bank was on it and they never managed to do any damage. DOB is really easy to get tbh.
 
Thats why whenever I get a phone call from the bank or whoever and they ask me to confirm my DOB I say of course I can confirm it but you need to tell it me first.

Otherwise I'm NOT confirming it I'm telling it to a complete stranger.

I thought with experian etc you can let them know of any fraudulent activity and they will put some extra measures in place
 
Thanks for the posts guys, Im religious with shredding info and not signing up to any old crap on the net. I deal with HMRC a lot in my job and they ring up asking me to confirm my details so again Im very careful not to give out my details to anyone but clearly Ive slipped up somewhere!
 
Mark M said:
Thanks for the posts guys, Im religious with shredding info and not signing up to any old crap on the net. I deal with HMRC a lot in my job and they ring up asking me to confirm my details so again Im very careful not to give out my details to anyone but clearly Ive slipped up somewhere!
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To be honest, I put my experience down to a bad egg in the bank. How else could they get my banking password? I do not even use the banking. I reckon inside job, they knew far too much about me and my accounts and could answer every question put to them. The fact that they were had an (how to say this) indian / foreign accent and the clearly did not have my name and my locality as an accent was the reason nothing was done. They tried to get the address changed and a replacement card sent out.
 
I had 8 contracts taken out in my name. Exactly the same situation as yourself.
I had to go around all the phone providers to make sure no more had been taken out.
I also joined cifas.


Mine came from a rogue vodafone employee using/selling my info.
 
PhillyDee said:
To be honest, I put my experience down to a bad egg in the bank. How else could they get my banking password? I do not even use the banking. I reckon inside job, they knew far too much about me and my accounts and could answer every question put to them. The fact that they were had an (how to say this) indian / foreign accent and the clearly did not have my name and my locality as an accent was the reason nothing was done. They tried to get the address changed and a replacement card sent out.
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My friend has recently had fraud and they suspected the same - the information they had gained extended to not only the account but also where savings and investments were held. It was quite obviously knowledge that could have only been gained from the inside.
 
Ask the phone companies (at least one of them) to register you on the CIFAS register. There is not much you can do but bear in mind that the fraudsters may not have actually stolen any paperwork from you, you may be surprised about what one can find about someone online.
 
Any body can look up electoral list. And I think I'm right to say anyone can request experian or any other credit check on you (companies do it all the time anyway) and get your details, dob and general info regarding your financial situation and how easy it would be to get contracts to your name?
 
Its actually scary how easy it is to find info about people these days.

30 seconds was all it took to find

Full Name
Address (Including name of other occupant in house)
Year of birth (actual date would take longer but is possible to find)
Twitter
Linkedin
Place of work
Company Director ID
Job History
Education history

All the details are online these days and while shredding paperwork is still a good idea to minimise risk of theft but will never eliminate the threat entirely. Banking passwords and bank details are usually obtained by a dodgy employee in a bank/phoneshop/petrol station.

My cards were cloned a few months back while using my local petrol station.

Luckily these days the banks etc are pretty good at fixing these sorts of thefts but its still not a nice feeling.

/Salsa
 
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Mark M said:
So, someone has my name, address and DOB but not my bank details. Any ideas where they might have got this information from?

QUOTE]

It really isn't hard to get any of that nowadays through the internet, I've googled people and have pulled all of that information plus more through facebook alone, hence why I often google my own name and breathe a sigh of relief when I get nothing back.

The first question you'll ask is 'why were you looking for such information?'

And I'll answer

None of your bizness! :p
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I don't sign up to databases with my real information very easily. All the store cards, competitions and so on. These days your information is all over the place and it is practically unavoidable. Only thing anyone can do is try to avoid giving out information to any database unless it is unavoidable.

But I blame the cell phone companies because they should require passport identification and other forms of ID to take out contracts. Next thing you can't get credit because some ass hat has signed you up to 8 contracts and store cards and you didn't even know.

As for information on the internet, just not worth it. Would you attach your CV or similar to a public notice board in a tesco or something?
 
Mark M said:
So, someone has my name, address and DOB but not my bank details. Any ideas where they might have got this information from?
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Electoral roll
Birth Record office
Facebook
Any company who've ever signed up to
Any website you've ever signed up to
Ancestry.com

Simply put, your name, address and even date of birth are practically public information. Even a phone book will list your name and address.

The scam you describe happened to me but I wouldn't call it identity theft unless they've got your bank details too. In my case they didn't use my name just my address and started getting letters from mobile phone companies addressed to some Arabic name to my house.

Like you I phoned them and told them they'd been scammed and heard nothing since. Not a lot you can do really.
 
estebanrey said:
Electoral roll
I wouldn't call it identity theft unless they've got your bank details too.
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MooMoo444 said:
If they dont have any crucial details then I wouldn't worry about it.
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Well the fact it has appeared on my credit report means that it has already had a negative impact but I agree it could be a lot worse if they had my bank details.
 
You say you are a company director. Do you employ anyone? Maybe one of your employees did this knowing that they could get hold of your personal data easily or maybe even knowing it.
 
Same has happened to my dad recently, has had 5 credit card applications already and they even tried to sign up to Experian & Equifax as well so they blocked access! They have now put a marker on his credit file so extra security needs to be before any application is approved from now onwards.

Amazing how many details they got, all his personal and his bank details. Three of the applications got rejected but two of the applications got through and even had direct debits set up! Have no idea where they got them from because my dad has never bought anything online, hardly ever uses his credit or debit card as well. Only thing he recently signed up for is an O2 mobile contract, but I did that for him online and did my mums, wifes and mine around the same time! My computer is clean (has Kaspersky & Malwarebytes) so thinking someone from there might of done it.
 
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