Discussion
Over the last few days I've been getting letters addressed to someone else at my address. Now, unless this person is very very small, he doesn't live in my flat. I opened a couple of these letters and found rejections from credit card companies. All of them. So someone is using my address to try and get credit cards.
How does this work? I have a locked mailbox so I can't quite understand how, if they were successful in getting a card, they would physically get possession of the card and subsequent statements.
I have phoned 2 of the credit card companies and let them know that it's a potential fraud, but is there anything else I should be doing?
How does this work? I have a locked mailbox so I can't quite understand how, if they were successful in getting a card, they would physically get possession of the card and subsequent statements.
I have phoned 2 of the credit card companies and let them know that it's a potential fraud, but is there anything else I should be doing?
Google for CIFAS if you are concerned, and you may want to consider reporting the problem to the local BiB, to cover your bases in any future correspondence. Had a similar thing a year or so ago, with a lower aspiring criminal - they had requested a Catalog card, or similar, but havent heard anything since, and have been keeping a reasonable eye on things. You may want to do a credit search on yourself/ask for your records from Experian etc to find out whats going on..
We had some woman applying for benefits using our address earlier this year. Then she got a summons for assaulting a bus driver. I opened the post and wrote to the relevant agencies to tell tehm this wa sa fraudulent claim and to the court to say that she did not live and had never lived at our address.
silversun said:
Maybe somebody thought they would be able to intercept mail to your address and then didn't get all of it?
Not sure how. I've got a locking mailbox.
Yes but they wouldn't have known that when they bought/found your address details, which probably explains why you're finding rejection letters, if you didn't have a locking mail box you'd be none the wiser.
Axeman30 said:
Yes but they wouldn't have known that when they bought/found your address details, which probably explains why you're finding rejection letters, if you didn't have a locking mail box you'd be none the wiser.
Then it's a good job I opened the letters and can hopefully stop my credit rating being shafted by some chicken-footed thieving pissbucket, isn't it?
And for those that say opening others' post is illegal, aren't fraudulent credit card applications illegal too? Which of us is going to get arrested should anyone ever be caught?
silversun said:
And for those that say opening others' post is illegal, aren't fraudulent credit card applications illegal too? Which of us is going to get arrested should anyone ever be caught?
Yep, they are. Yet another wonderful catch 22. At the end of the day you just have to make up your own mind as to what the best course of action is. I happen to have accidently opened things addressed to others but sent to my address as I thought it was my mail, I mean who elses could it have been if only I live there...
silversun said:You, because you've admitted an offence. You have no evidence of who commited the other crime, and with one in the bag already (you) do you really think plod will go after the real guilty parties? Nope, you're the easy kill.
Yes but they wouldn't have known that when they bought/found your address details, which probably explains why you're finding rejection letters, if you didn't have a locking mail box you'd be none the wiser.
Then it's a good job I opened the letters and can hopefully stop my credit rating being shafted by some chicken-footed thieving pissbucket, isn't it?
And for those that say opening others' post is illegal, aren't fraudulent credit card applications illegal too? Which of us is going to get arrested should anyone ever be caught?
Try it. Go down the nick with a fistful of opened letters addressed to someone else and see how much further than "I opened these letters addressed to someone else ..." you get before your collar gets felt.
Zod said:I'm shocked (but not surprised) that they accepted that.
We had some woman applying for benefits using our address earlier this year. Then she got a summons for assaulting a bus driver. I opened the post and wrote to the relevant agencies to tell tehm this wa sa fraudulent claim and to the court to say that she did not live and had never lived at our address.
I mean, let's imagine you assualt a bus driver, and give your name and address when caught at the scene.
If getting off with it is as easy as writing back in a (possibly fictitous) name saying that you have never lived there then surely everyone would do it?
(Oh, hang on, maybe everyone is doing it ...)
Oli.
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