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A fraudulent phone contract has been taken out in my husband’s name and he is now threatened with court action.
At the start of May he received a letter from a law firm stating he owed money for a Three phone contract. He explained that he’d never bought a phone from that company – he has been with Vodafone since 2001.
When he started receiving letters about the contract – including one informing him that the debt had now been sold – he thought it was a scam. It was only when he got the legal letter he realised that he had been a victim of identity theft.
We asked the law firm for copies of the bills and the address the handset was sent to, but were told this information was not available. We also contacted Three customer services and Action Fraud.
Since then, Three has not responded, and my husband has received notice he is going to be taken to court.
Today he had a phone call with the court service and was told that, as Three had not responded, the case would continue.
We are caught in a nightmare of being pursued for a debt my husband does not owe, and being refused information about who did take out the contract. AW, London
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Based on the letters I receive, it appears it is much easier to commit fraud than to extricate yourself from being a victim of one. These kinds of legal threats are terrifying to receive.
This has been a worrying time but Three has closed the fraudulent account and confirmed that your husband is not liable for any costs related to it. It says: “We apologise that our customer services did not meet our usual high standards on this occasion.
“We have logged the account as fraudulent, cancelled all payment requests and requested that the credit file is amended.” The legal case has been dropped.
As your husband’s personal details were misused, Three will notify Cifas, the UK’s fraud prevention service, which will add a protective marker against his name.
This may mean if he applies for credit in the future the process may take slightly longer, as extra checks will be made on applications.
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