Last month an expensive GoPro action camera that I had not ordered was delivered to my house. Then the bill arrived from the online retailer Jacamo. It turned out that someone had opened an account in my name and spent more than £800.
The fraudsters also created an account in my wife’s name and spent the same amount.
I live in a street of about 20 houses and nearly all of my neighbours have been targeted, sometimes with multiple accounts opened in the names of different family members.
I reported this to Jacamo and Action Fraud but I’m worried about the impact on my credit rating. My Experian score has dropped 165 points this month.
Calling Jacamo costs 11p a minute, and I was on the phone for an hour trying to close the account.
How on earth have all these accounts been opened? The camera cost more than £400, so I assume the fraudsters forgot to enter a different delivery address or were going to “collect” from me.
I don’t understand how Jacamo can see such a spike in activity – a handful of neighbours also had cameras delivered in the same street – and not realise something is wrong.
WG, Epsom, Surrey
You ask a good question. This kind of identity theft is very alarming, not least because the APR on the account is a whopping 44.9%.
It is odd that some of the cameras were actually delivered but, whatever the motive, you have become the latest victims of the UK’s scams epidemic. Con artists are stealing more than £3m a day, according to banking body UK Finance’s mid-year fraud update.
I asked Jacamo, part of the N Brown group, to look into this. It has now “closed these fraudulent accounts and taken steps to prevent any impact on their credit history”.
It says it is “sorry for the concern and inconvenience that WG and his neighbours have experienced following this criminal activity”. It followed up this apology with flowers and £100 compensation.
As to why the flurry of account openings in one street did not raise alarm bells, it says: “While this incident is extremely unusual in terms of scale and localised impact, the methods that criminals are using have grown increasingly sophisticated.
“We continuously review our authentication and monitoring systems to better enable us to flag suspicious behaviour and prevent fraud.”
If someone applies for credit in your name, after you have reported it to the company and Action Fraud, you should contact the three main credit reference agencies: TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.
Get them to remove accounts you didn’t apply for. You could also ask them to add a password to your file, which you will have to supply for future credit applications.
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