A couple of days ago I had the worrying news that there is a 'substantial sum of money' borrowed in my name and secured on a property in which I used to be a tennant. The strange thing is that the debt is being paid off and the payments are up to date. I am now waiting for my credit report from Experian, which may take another week to come, which hopefully may shed some light on what's going on.

Not surprisingly, I'm losing sleep over this and I am wondering if there's anything I can do in the meantime. I'm hoping that it is an admin error or something like that, but my life is rarely that straightforward.

How can a loan be secured on a property which I have never owned? Arrgh - it's doing my head in!

The loan company won't care what the name is on the documents, all they will know is that their money is secured on the property. So I wouldn't think it likely it can come back onto you.

I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it, but if you know who the lender is it might be worth a phone call to them, just to make them aware of your concerns.

Edit, After reading the comments following my posting, I hold my hands up and withdraw my advice. Go with Joe's advice below.

Get this sorted immediately.

It's quite possible that the borrowers are straight up and that they used your name because they had a sullied past that is now behind them. It's also possible that I'm a direct descendant of King frederick The Great of Prussia and the re-incarnation of General Patton.

Seriously, if they don't pay it's your name in the frame. There is something called the CIFAS register that is used by lenders to keep an eye on possibly fraudulent borrowing.

Check your Credit Record - might be worth getting a sceond copy from Equifax as well - and then contact the lender. What's been done is fraud.

It's also the basis of a cunning stunt....with such paperwork they can usually get an 'equity loan' - as they may have done here or a second mortgage - and then keep payments for a little longer then do a bunk.

They have the money, you get tracked back and you get the bailiffs.

Get this checked as soon as possible.

Joe

Originally posted by hatter
A couple of days ago I had the worrying news that there is a 'substantial sum of money' borrowed in my name and secured on a property in which I used to be a tennant. The strange thing is that the debt is being paid off and the payments are up to date. I am now waiting for my credit report from Experian, which may take another week to come, which hopefully may shed some light on what's going on.

Not surprisingly, I'm losing sleep over this and I am wondering if there's anything I can do in the meantime. I'm hoping that it is an admin error or something like that, but my life is rarely that straightforward.

How can a loan be secured on a property which I have never owned? Arrgh - it's doing my head in!

you 'can' get your credit report immediatly id youd have paid a few pounds extra, online..:( even though their payments are up to date, these crims have used YOUR data and YOUR credit status for something obviuosly they didnt qualify for!hope you get this sorted
aunty witch x

we had a letter addressed to our house the other day, except it wasn't any of our names on the letter, we opened it anyways... naughty me but oh well...

anyways, good job we did, letter from a solicter informing us (well this unknown person) to pay a sum of nearly £31,000 from an unsecured loan on our house (our address), my mum rang them up and said "look this person doesnt live here, we've lived here 8 years, the person before us was an old lady not a man, and its been a council house since it was built, whats the deal?"

the solicitors said that this was the address they'd been given etc but they'd put some note saying its blatently not the real address... but how did someone take a loan out in our address without us knowing and getting some letters to confirm before hand?? company's hand out £31,000 loan without confirming an address???

I don't understand this.

If you haven't personally entered in to a contract with the loan company, and they don't have any proof of that (i.e. your signature), how can it come back to you ?

Unless it's the case that your signature has been forged !?

Originally posted by Jamie
I don't understand this.

If you haven't personally entered in to a contract with the loan company, and they don't have any proof of that (i.e. your signature), how can it come back to you ?

Unless it's the case that your signature has been forged !?

It is easy to forge a signature. If you apply for something over the phone (a loan for example) they may send the paperwork for you to sign (depends who with, bank want more verification that dodgy loan companies)but how can they check that is YOUR signature? They can't, you could do any odd scribble and they would take it as your signature.

Jamie,

If a debt is run up in your name, and for whatever reason you cannot be contacted, your details (or rather the details of you that were used to get the loan / mortgage) go in to something called the 'Gone Away' register - a database kept by lenders of people who've done a bunk.

Yes, you can eventually sort this out, but all of a sudden you'll find yourself being unable to get credit.

Quite seriously, people need to realise that the amount of information needed to get a loan is quite small. yes, it can be sorted out, but as someone who's had trouble getting corrections made to my own credit records due to incompetence on the part of the lenders, I'd not want to try getting corrcetions made when, according to the lender, they've done nothing wrong....

Joe

Originally posted by owdlad
The loan company won't care what the name is on the documents, all they will know is that their money is secured on the property. So I wouldn't think it likely it can come back onto you.

I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it, but if you know who the lender is it might be worth a phone call to them, just to make them aware of your concerns.

Edit, After reading the comments following my posting, I hold my hands up and withdraw my advice. Go with Joe's advice below.

Hi owdlad,

It's all a bit of a nightmare, whichever way you go!

Only reason I mentionedit is that I spent a while working on Money Laundering Compliance and Mortgage Lending systems, so you get to know all the boring ins and outs.

Joe :)

But if it isn't your signature, surely the burden would be on them to prove that it is a genuine signature, before they can recover any monies from you !?

Innocent until proven guilty !?

Originally posted by Jamie
Innocent until proven guilty !?
Yeah right!. Nice idea in theory but it doesn't always work. Best to get it sorted before it ends up with the balliffs at the door.

I would agree with everyone on this but would like to add this is not only identity theft it is also fraud. You need to sort this immediately as Joe says get in touch with the loan company. Whatever you do don't leave it this will probably be only the start of their fraudulant transactions! I would recommend that you go to the police about it too.

Originally posted by JoePritchard

It's also the basis of a cunning stunt....
Joe

ooooooh so close................ Reminds me of Betty Swallocks!!

Originally posted by coopster1974
ooooooh so close................ Reminds me of Betty Swallocks!!

Oh come now...surely you remember that starlet of stage and screen Cupid Stunt and her 'Agent' Kenny Everett? ;)

Back to the subject - another issue is that that loan is now potentially listed in numerous places against you. If you now want to borrow some money for a new car, a lender may look to see what you're already owing.

You fill the form out and say '10,000 on a studet loan' or whatever. If the Lender's borrowing criteria take in to account amount owed and they suddenly see 100,000 or whatever that you've not declared, so to say, it could go against you.

One thing about the 'instantly available' credit records is that when I got mine they didn't show something called INSIGHT information, which is what is known against you by the banks. Banks share this data - have you done runner owing thousands, etc. - and it was shown on the statutory Credit report (GBP2.00 or whatever it is). Worth getting that as well.

Joe

Originally posted by JoePritchard
One thing about the 'instantly available' credit records is that when I got mine they didn't show something called INSIGHT information, which is what is known against you by the banks. Banks share this data - have you done runner owing thousands, etc. - and it was shown on the statutory Credit report (GBP2.00 or whatever it is). Worth getting that as well.

Joe

Is this not contrary to the Data Protection laws Joe?

Originally posted by Jamie
Is this not contrary to the Data Protection laws Joe?

You give consent to financial institutions using information in this way when you open accounts/take out loans with them.

Thank you for all the advice, thankfully this was a false alarm.:clap:

I bought an online credit report from Equifax and discovered that the sum in question is the mortgage for my CURRENT house- it comes under a heading for my old address as that was where I was living when I applyed for the mortgage. I'm really annoyed (that is the polite version) with the person I dealt with on the phone for saying this money was secured on my old address and making me so anxious.

Some of the information held on this credit report was a few months out of date, so I'm going to wait and see if the report from Experian is more current, before I apply for any more loans.

Oh- and I'm also going to buy a shredder
:hihi:

Don't know if anyone's got any advice as I've got a similar problem. I can't get credit at all (in fact I've never been able to get it). I have no financial problems that I'm aware of and my bank are happy to give me a credit card etc. I have had a credit report from Experian but nothing dodgy appeared on that. The only thing is that one of my housemates had a problem with identity fraud at our previous address so his name is also flagged up on my report. Having said that, the problems began before that incident. Should I try and get another report from a different company?

Have you asked on what grounds credit was refused? They should tell you, it may at least give you a clue.

It's possible that there's a CIFAS refer on your address because of your housemate's problems, but that shouldn't lead to credit being declined, rather extra checks would be made before releasing funds.

my mum and dad had thier identity cloned.

The first they knew about it was when they got a phone call from the police asking where there car was, they replied that it was in the garge and checked that it was still there. The police asked them to bring the car in to the station as a car with the same reg had been involved in a armed robbery.

The police identified that it was not the car in question and let them go home. About 2 weeks later my mum recieved three moblie phone bills all with international calls on for over £500+. My mum rang up and they refused to believe her. Eventually this was sorted, then the loans started........

Eventually they had to get something on thier name which makes all companies ask for extra proof if they ask for credit, and got all the other stuff wiped from thier name and credit record. It took a good three years to get things sorted, they never found out actually what was going on. They shred everything now.

Originally posted by Jamie
Is this not contrary to the Data Protection laws Joe?

No, the data is registered properly - though you can get it all under the Data Protection Act if you ask for it. As Andy says, when you sign the small print there's a bit in tehre about sharing of data necessary for the administration of your account information.

That's why it's in the statutory stuff that you get for GBP2.00 or whatever. Why they don't include it on the other stuff I don't know.

Joe

Originally posted by Netsrik
Don't know if anyone's got any advice as I've got a similar problem. I can't get credit at all (in fact I've never been able to get it). I have no financial problems that I'm aware of and my bank are happy to give me a credit card etc. I have had a credit report from Experian but nothing dodgy appeared on that. The only thing is that one of my housemates had a problem with identity fraud at our previous address so his name is also flagged up on my report. Having said that, the problems began before that incident. Should I try and get another report from a different company?

I'd go with Andy on this one - but another report from a different agency will still probably reveal the same sort of information.

WHat you may need to do is to get a Dissociation Notice attached to your records that basically states you have nothing to do with your ex-housemate.

You might also want to contact the Registry of County Court Judgements and just ensutre there's nothing against you. Sometimes you can have a CCJ showing as still 'live' but not actually have a debt in your credit records.

Also, just look at the details of your records - are there any strings of late payments, etc.?

Cheers

Joe

The loan has been obtained by deception. The lenders will know where the borrower is if this is being repayed, But, This is a criminals offence. You also have the option of going to the police yourself. Maybe they are paying the money back, But, What else is being done in your name. There may well be a bank account opened in your name by these people in order to make payments. More than one form of ID and other documents are needed to obtain loans on property. So I would assume that they have forged documents relating to you. I would get in touch with the fraud squad at West Bar.