identity theft help

[Roadrider48]

Well, I had somebody use my details to order an Olympus digital camera and it ended up being delivered to me instead!

I got in touch with the bank and the company who sent the camera and it turned out that a couple of companies had rejected orders because their security systems picked up that the delivery address was wrong (somewhere in mainland europe). The 3rd company noticed that the address was wrong but decided to just substitute my address for the foreign one!!!

(I was all set to send the camera back but decided that I rather liked it. I checked several online reviews and decided to keep it so I cancelled the original card and transaction and paid for it with my new card when it came!)

Looks like some good work by the first two companies at smelling a rat. Glad you liked the camera.
It's just a bit eery knowing how easily this kind of thing can happen isn't it?

 

[Andrew_P]

What is the service you use?

I signed up with each of them for their free view of your account, or for a nominal fee of £2

Experian had two linked addresses that had nothing to do with me, all had searches that had nothing to do with me. There is an option with all of them to sign up for email alerts to new activity on your credit file, I subscribe to Experian. I had to as clearly my details had been compromised.

 

[snailracer]

Having worked in a call centre that sold mobile phones. The payoff for the seller happens what ever is done with the phone
First scenario -- Phone is sent to the customer (don't forget they already have you name and address, DOB etc) You don't do anything about it. Seller gets the commision from the phone company about £200-£250 depending on the contract. Customer get nasty bill
Second scenario -- Phone is sent to the customer. Seller gets the commision from the phone company, Customer phones the phone company up contract gets sorted after a lot of hard work by the customer.
Winner in both is the call center, loser is alway the customer.

My wife got scammed this way by an actual Vodafone shop, I presume the salesman was chasing his end-of-month sales bonus.
BTW, you can keep unsolicited goods, if you can stand the hassle.