Attention: Please take a moment to consider our terms and conditions before posting.

Identity fraud/Scams

man_at_millettsman_at_milletts
in Not Sports Related
Thought I'd share this which happened to me recently, as I was told that SE9 and SE6 areas have been targeted recently.

I received an unexpected (signed for) package at the door, which turned out to be from Studio.co.uk containing 2x500ml Paco Rabane Million and 2 Georgio Armani T-shirts and a despatch note for £260. (No invoice) These are not items I would be ordering, let alone on line.

The despatch note also told me how I could contact the sender and pay for the goods.

As these were unsolicited, I wrote as registered letter to the sender claiming they were unsolicited and if they don't collect them within two weeks I would treat them as a 'gift'.

They contacted me and said that they had a suspected a fraudulent account was being opened in my name, and together we went through all the details they had on me, and everything was correct except my DOB and email address. The conclusion was that the fraudsters got this from the Companies House register which they can do for free.

The scam is that they intercept the courier at your doorstep, claim to be me and take the goods. Now, if they had managed to do that, the first I would have known about it would have been when somebody run a credit check against my name, as the sender of the goods had put a marker on it. That would have left an awful lot of unraveling to deal with.

The senders fraud department said this was very prevalent in SE9 and SE6 areas at the moment.



P.S. Nobody has contacted me about the goods, so that's a few Crimbo presents solved .

Comments

  • To_Be_FranckTo_Be_Franck
    MrOneLung said:

    Or....

    you have just phoned up the fraudster and confirmed with them that most of the details they have for you are correct.

    "They must think I was born yesterday, my mother's maiden name was Jones, not Smith "

  • AddicktedAddickted
    Should now change your name to man_at_house_of_fraser
  • palarsehaterpalarsehater
    credit card got done today, luckily hsbc blocked it, literally havent used it for months, only last week to buy bury tickets.
  • Pedro45Pedro45
    palarsehater said:

    credit card got done today, luckily hsbc blocked it, literally havent used it for months, only last week to buy bury tickets.

    Probably palace Mandy paying you back!
  • man_at_millettsman_at_milletts
    MrOneLung said:

    Or....

    you have just phoned up the fraudster and confirmed with them that most of the details they have for you are correct.

    Yes that's true, and she sounded remarkably like my wife.
  • EynsfordaddickEynsfordaddick
    We had a similar scam on us a while ago but we received 2 Samsung phones! Luckily I saw someone lurking at the end of our drive, as we were phoned by the fraudsters to say that a courier would come and pick them up because they had been delivered to the wrong address! Like heck. We spent hours trying to sort it and reported it to the police (who have a special department for this kind of crime). We sent them back to the phone company in the end.
  • man_at_millettsman_at_milletts
    Eynsfordaddick said:

    We had a similar scam on us a while ago but we received 2 Samsung phones! Luckily I saw someone lurking at the end of our drive, as we were phoned by the fraudsters to say that a courier would come and pick them up because they had been delivered to the wrong address! Like heck. We spent hours trying to sort it and reported it to the police (who have a special department for this kind of crime). We sent them back to the phone company in the end.

    How did they get your number?
  • EynsfordaddickEynsfordaddick
    Never really found out how but they had set up phone contracts as well in our name but not linked to our accounts! Phew. You wouldn't believe how long it took us to get them to take the phones back! It was as if we were the crooks.
  • AddicksAddictAddicksAddict
    Twice people have managed to use my Amex card to buy expensive items, both times Amex spotted it and stopped it, albeit after the transaction had originally gone through. The daft thing is, one of the items was a plane ticket from Dallas to LA for some time quote far in the future from the sale date, meaning if they did turn up to use it they'd have got nicked.
  • Sponsored links:


  • man_at_millettsman_at_milletts
    Eynsfordaddick said:

    Never really found out how but they had set up phone contracts as well in our name but not linked to our accounts! Phew. You wouldn't believe how long it took us to get them to take the phones back! It was as if we were the crooks.

    Have you checked your credit rating recently?
  • EynsfordaddickEynsfordaddick
    Oh this was quite a while ago, thank goodness, but it did affect getting a mobile contract last year! Sorted that eventually as well. Hope you get sorted as well.
  • man_at_millettsman_at_milletts
    Yep, the marker came off almost straight away.
  • LuckyRedsLuckyReds
    edited July 2016
    @man_at_milletts - it may be worth signing up for Experian CreditExpert, not just to check your credit rating but to also get alerts whenever any of your data is found online. I got an email the other day saying an old email address and password were found online rather worryingly, but it goes to show that their monitoring is pretty good.

    It's frustrating as the other agencies provide records for free online, with no need for a Subject Access Request or the like; CallCredit via Noddle, and Equifax via ClearScore. I signed up for the three services last week, but the paid for CreditExpert offering via Experian was the only one capable of monitoring for data leaks. They do a free trial if you remember to cancel though..

    As for your details being found via Companies House, I seem to recall that you can also retrieve DOB via their records though? When I worked for Duedil we used to do massive imports of CH data and I'm sure we had the DOB for all directors.
  • TeslaGirlTeslaGirl
    Changes with data that you now have to lodge at companies house means your DoB will now be a matter of public record - and pubished online. I have no idea why they are doing this: it isn't adding any value to anyone except people wanting to commit fraud. As I have pointed out to them but apparently unless I torture animals for a living, I have no choice but to have this published.

    They're picking on us vegetarians again.
  • addixaddix
    Eynsfordaddick said:

    We had a similar scam on us a while ago but we received 2 Samsung phones! Luckily I saw someone lurking at the end of our drive, as we were phoned by the fraudsters to say that a courier would come and pick them up because they had been delivered to the wrong address! Like heck. We spent hours trying to sort it and reported it to the police (who have a special department for this kind of crime). We sent them back to the phone company in the end.

    I had a similar incident last year with Vodaphone.

    Contacted them and the police but neither were very interested. Even took photos and videoed the 'courier' that came round to collect the misdelivered phone.

    Gave up with Vodafone in the end as they never sent the prepaid envelope they said they would to get their phone back despite calling them on a number of occasions and speaking to their fraud team so it's in a drawer somewhere.

    Although I was sent the phone, iirc a guy in Leicester was actually billed for it and was a £400 phone at the time.
Sign In or Register to comment.

Roland Out Forever!