Identity Fraud or innocent error?!

[NDA]

I received a letter today from a company called 'Tower Capital' in Bournemouth telling me that I had defaulted on a monthly payment of £124 and I needed to pay over £200...

I've never heard of Tower Capital and have no loans, HP agreements or anything else - with anyone.

Being a Saturday means I can't contact them .

All a bit odd!

I've written to my bank asking them to keep an eye out for anything unusual happening on my accounts.

Anyone else had something similar? Should I be concerned??

I'm probably being overly anxious!

[TooLateForAName]

Google says that they are a payday loan company. So imho dodgy as a dodgy thing.

[NDA]

TooLateForAName said:

Google says that they are a payday loan company. So imho dodgy as a dodgy thing.

Yes, I thought the same too.

I wonder how they got hold of my name and address?

[JQ]

I don't know how this Payday Loan companies work, but I guess you show them say 3 months payslips and they loan you a percentage of that figure until the next payday. Sounds like someone could have got hold of your payslips.

[NDA]

My last P60 went missing in the post - I wonder if that could be connected?

I'll find out tomorrow when I phone them!

[JQ]

Let us know how you get on, it's always good to know how these scammers work, so that hopefully I can take some actions to avoid them.

[NDA]

Yes, will do.

I'm in a bit of a rush this morning, but if I have time later I'll post up the document that was sent to me....

[NDA]

Well I spoke to Tower Capital and explained the situation....

They gave me the email address and telephone numbers for the person who made the application for the £100 loan. 'Do you work for XXX Accounting firm?' er no, I don't need to work any more. Seems the pay slips were from an accounting firm which must have been forged to feature my name (photoshopped maybe).

I'm writing to them setting out the fact I shall expect them to rescind their 'Default Notice' and that a fraudulent application has been made.

Not quite sure what I should do with the email address and phone numbers...

[TooLateForAName]

Police?

I would be on the credit reference agencies - they can put an 'at risk of fraud' flag against your name that means that further attempts at credit will be flagged up and receive special attention.

[NDA]

TooLateForAName said:

I would be on the credit reference agencies - they can put an 'at risk of fraud' flag against your name that means that further attempts at credit will be flagged up and receive special attention.

That's a good idea - I'm not quite sure how I do that though. There seem to be dozens of them.

[Gring]

TooLateForAName said:

Police?

I would be on the credit reference agencies - they can put an 'at risk of fraud' flag against your name that means that further attempts at credit will be flagged up and receive special attention.

Yes, I agree, one of our tenants was a victim of fraud, as we owned the property and had lived there in the past, we got a CIFAS warning put on our credit files. The agencys say that this doesnt effect your credit rating, but I can tell you from first hand experience it does.

[bogwoppit]

Having worked for a short time in a business banking admin team, I can tell you that any credit report containing a CIFAS entry, no matter what it was, was always bounced to an underwriter. Also, I witnessed plenty of administrators not quite understand the procedure and ended up automatically rejecting applications because of CIFAS warnings.

[Gring]

bogwoppit said:

Having worked for a short time in a business banking admin team, I can tell you that any credit report containing a CIFAS entry, no matter what it was, was always bounced to an underwriter. Also, I witnessed plenty of administrators not quite understand the procedure and ended up automatically rejecting applications because of CIFAS warnings.

Doesnt surprise me at all, my wife and I have had to write numerous letters to different companies, and eventually got the CIFAS on our files removed. I had arguments with the companies who kept saying that it was against the 'LAW' for a company to reject you because of a CIFAS. At the end of the day, it is up to the loan company if they want to lend to you or not.

[NDA]

All good advice.

Any idea how I might go about alerting the credit reference agencies? It looks totally confusing from where I'm sat!