Be Excellent To Each Other

I had a letter this morning from Lloyds TSB Collections Centre.

* this reference number is not the same as on the letter, obv.

The problem with this is that, with the exception of a car loan that I had with Black Horse Finance (same group but different company) back in 2004, which I've paid off and have a confirmatory letter to that effect, I've got no dealings with Lloyds TSB at all.

So I ring up the number on the letter, get through to an Indian bloke who asks me for my account number and sort code. As I don't have one, I give him the number on the letter instead and he asks me some security questions - name, date of birth and first line of my address. On reflection perhaps I shouldn't have answered these, but I did.

He then goes on to tell me that I have a current account with them that has a balance of £620.58. "Is that in credit or overdrawn?", I ask. I already know what he'll say, and his answer of "overdrawn" confirms my suspicions.

They've blacklisted my account and he informed me that any other high street bank accounts I have will also be blacklisted as it's an outstanding debt.

So I've got to go into my local branch tomorrow to attempt to sort all this out. Any advice? He didn't tell me who the third party was that requested an address change, or indeed why a third party is able to request an address change.

Have I been had by a phishing letter?

Unk. That certainly sounds dodgy. Try calling lloyds and asking them for advice - and give them the 'phone number on the letter, to see if it's really theirs.

I would also call your bank and change the security details of any accounts you do have, explaining the situation. I don't see why the bloke would have mentioned that "other banks will give you grief blah blah" bit - sounds needlessly threatening. I could be wrong, but it's best to be safe. Call them now.

It sounds like a lot of trouble to go to just to get your date of birth. Were they pushing for any other information?

I tried that, but Lloyds TSB don't seem to have a fucking phone number on their site. So I looked at the Consumer Action Group website and found a number there, again for the collections centre. A different number, but it was an 0870 number (like the one on my letter) and had the same recorded message at the start.

They couldn't tell me if the number I'd called before was genuine, and just told me to go to the branch to sort it out. The other guy I spoke to on the other phone number told me that too, so I'm hoping he was a genuine Lloyds TSB employee.

No, and I thought it was a lot of trouble for information publically available too.

But if you assume that the letter is genuine, then that still means someone, somewhere has managed to open a Lloyds TSB bank account with my name and address and racked up £620 of debt.

The guy I spoke to on the phone said the last conversation I had with their customer services dept. was in May 2007, so that implies that the account has been open since then at the very latest. I've not received any statements or other correspondence whatsoever from Lloyds about this account, just this letter.

Very dodgy dude. I'm seriously glad I shred absolutely everything with my name on it. Keep us updated.

This wasn't smart

I've just written your name on my coaster. WHAT NOW, CLEVERPANTS?

I will shred everything in your world, starting with your face.

Yeah, I'd assume that.
I'd also assume that it's not your fucking problem if Lloyds TSB allow criminals to open accounts in their ex-customers names, and you'll be taking any mention of blacklisting up very seriously with the relevant watchdog. And the Guardian money page. And the data protection people, possibly.

Hm, anyway, good luck with it..

Indeed, I'd have refused to answer any security questions too.

I'd go down the branch, it's only fair but if they try to make you provide anything other than basic ID or make you spend more than 10 minutes of your life on it, tell them to fuck off, they're not your bank.

Isn't the Lloyds TSB number 0845 3 000 000 (3 million)?

I've just checked.. and yes it is. I don't think it will go through to India either. I believe they shut down their call centre in Mumbai and now use the staff to sort HR stuff... Seriously.

Good luck with sorting it though! I'd recommend going into a branch and not leaving till you get something in writing saying it's not your debt and you are not liable.

Right, went to the branch today. She couldn't find any information about me on their systems from my name and address.

So she rang the collections department and gave them the reference number on the letter. There is an account under my name with an overdrawn balance of £620 odd.

She asked me if I'd ever lived outside of Shropshire (to which I replied in the negative, as I haven't) and that implies to me that the address on the account isn't mine but is in fact an address outside of Shropshire.

If this is the case, then why did I receive a letter to MY address? She has confirmed that the letter I received IS genuine and wasn't a phishing attempt.

She couldn't do much there and then in the branch, said she had to speak to their fraud department and she'd get back to me. She has just phoned with the news that "it's not as cut and dried as we were hoping I'm afraid" which basically means that I now have to:

• Go to the police and get a crime reference number
• Speak to their collections department and prove that it's not my account (how the hell you prove a negative I don't know)
• Produce evidence of where I've been living for the past X number of years
• Get a credit file from Experian

So yeah, I'm a little bit pissed off. She has blocked the account from being used any more, but can't actually give me written confirmation of this. She can't tell me when the account was opened, nor how it was opened (i.e. online or in person), nor give me any information on transactions on the account.

So, in summary, Lloyds TSB = a waste of space. I can only hope that they treat their actual customers better than they're treating me.

This is the "data protection" angle you can pursue if you want to get shirty with them. It has produced results for me before. They've got your name and details and are messing with your credit record without your say-so.

I'd agree with that.


Speak to them, and take a note of the date and time of the call. Then ignore the increasingly threatening letters which will continue to arrive from their collection department regardless. I also don't think you need to be proving anything to these clowns, but it's up to you.


Sadly this is probably wise.

Sorry to hear this tale of woe, it's made me realise I should probably be more careful with this kind of info as well.

I concur with that. My local branch is terrible, the most recent example being berating some poor woman who was trying to close down her account (the server was shocking in her manner), only to change tack when the woman mentioned that she was only closing the account to move the money to another Lloyds account. Then again, this is the branch that, without a hint of irony, refused my Icelandic wife an account (regardless of me being a Lloyds customer for over 25 years), due to 'terrorism and money laundering concerns'. Lloyds HQ confirmed this was a load of shit and against company policy, but there you go.

As kalmar said, you could try telling them you want to know everything about this or you'll be submitting an official data protection request; they might prefer to give you what you want to know for free instead of absolutely everything for a tenner. Using the DPA as an excuse is nonsense because it's your information (allegedly) they're witholding.

Unless this is over-enthusiastic collections latching on to you because someone with the same name, and otherwise unrelated, has left their account overdrawn and done one and they already know that but are casting the net wide (in other words, they're on a fishing expedition, despite what you were told).

Fronting up to them like that might cause them to disconnect you with no further effort on your part - either they really believe you're the debtor and have to release all information, or they accept you're not and have to correct their records. If they release data or don't correct their records they're liable to a kicking off the Data Protection Wossname.

A collections agency once wanted me to prove to them that I wasn't a previous owner-occupier by way of sending them a copy of the land registry deeds; I told them in no uncertain terms that doing investigation was their job and I wouldn't be doing it for them. Never heard from them again.

Indeed, I wouldn't be proving a damn thing to Lloyds. I don't think I'd get a crime number either, no-one committed a crime against me yet except possibly Lloyds themselves.

Aye, it's a good point. So far all you know is that the bank is trying to collect from you for someone else with the same name.
If this account turns out to have the same DOB as well then fair enough it's a scam, but it's definitely Lloyd's problem either way.

I'd say ignore them if it wasn't for the credit record threat, so your sensible option is probably to make a large stink and waft it in their direction

Which would be Llloyds attempting to defraud you actually, so you might need a crime ref for when you take them to court for your time, emotional distress and negative effects on your credit file.

The date of birth on the account is the same.

How would I threaten them with the DPA without inadvertently making it sound like I was admitting it is my account? I get the impression that saying "Well, as far as your records are concerned, it IS my account so I should be entitled to get all the information available on it" would be taken as an admission of guilt.

"You won't tell me what's going on, only that you incorrectly think I owe you £620 and you're threatening to ruin my life if I don't pay it, so if you won't be reasonable I'm going to have to start applying my legal rights."

Adding ", you cunts." is up to you.

Also: consider ringing the CAB, although they do same to never actually be fucking open - last time I wanted to speak to them, the only "local" places to me weren't local, and were open four weekday mornings a week, after 10. Yeah. Nice.

What exactly are my legal rights in this matter, though? I'm aware of my rights under the DPA but anything other than that I'm clueless about.

You don't have an account with them but they're clearly holding some information on you at this point (in order to have written to you and so on), without there being any contract or permission from you, and that's what you're after.

After all, they've threatened to blacklist you. It could in fact be an empty threat in order to provoke an outraged reaction and get you to defend yourself and eliminate yourself from their enquiries. Which as BikNorton found above, would be a way of getting you to do their work for them.

Frankly that's a bit crappy so even if the data protection request won't tell you anything it'll at least waste their time in revenge and possibly get them to leave you alone.

For a start there is no such thing as a 'black list' so that's bollocks. Get the credit report and see what information they have on accounts that are currently in operation. At the worse this account will be marked on your credit report as being in default but if you explain the situation to Experian they will put a notice of correction on your report that will inform anybody who looks that the account is in dispute.

As you say it is up to the bank to prove that you owe this money. If it goes to court then you should be able to bring quite a lot of doubt that this isn't the case. It would be handy to know how the money was drawn from the account. If it was from a cash machine in another part of the country (or another country) you should be able to prove that you weren't there (or rather they won't be able to prove that you were). The bank would have to proof that you were in receipt of the card in the first place which they cannot.

They sharing increasingly large quantities of data with each other on this sort of thing, although I'd thought that was about credit cards.

Thinking about it, if they're not threatening court there's little to worry about. Also, your credit file - that they should* already have looked at as part of their investigation - will show plenty at your current address with decent timelines, and nothing at the other address, or all starting after a specific date.

* That takes five minutes and costs a couple of pence, so of course they won't have. Why bother when they can send you a letter in the hope of panicking you into doing their job for them?

I've just tried to sign up to Experian to get a credit report and apparently I already have signed up... hmm.

Ring them

Try Equifax? And report to Experian that someone's signed up using your details - they won't tell you anything but it should kick an investigation off.

Experien really are the best though and the vast majority of banks use them.

Hmm, I think I did sign up for the Experian account as the password on the account is my super-ultra-strong account password that has never been written down anywhere.

I just can't remember the memorable word to login

I've gotta send some documents through to Experian to activate the account apparently.

Recent exchange in Lloyds TSB, Fleet:

Customer: My card's not working—can you tell me why?
Lloyds TSB drone: [takes card] It's been cancelled.
C: Why have you cancelled my card?
L: You're not allowed to have two cards active on one account.
C: But I don't have two cards. I just have this one.
L: The computer says you have two.
C: But I don't. I just have this one.
L: The computer says you have two.
C: Yes, but I really don't.
L: You have the other card we sent to you four weeks ago, in addition to this one.
C: I didn't receive another card.
L: You have the other card we sent to you four weeks ago.

Etc.

This went on for about two minutes before the drone finally got all pissy and sent the hapless customer over to the customer services desk, presumably to be fed to the lions. It clearly didn't dawn on the drone that the card sent had never arrived. (This comes as no surprise. Lloyds in Cardiff, which I used while at uni, used to send my new cards to my parents' house, for no discernible reason, despite sending PIN numbers and other stuff to my house in lovely concretety Adamsdown.)

So: good luck, GazChap!

Banks are one of those places where anything that's not 100% ordianry and routine will be impossible to work out if you get the wrong member of staff involved. With people like that, it's best to go back to the queue and pointedly go to another window next time instead. Eventually, you might walk into the one person who understands basic abstract logic.

Going outside and calling their centralised helpline for support, then going back in and handing them your phone is fantastic fun. I got not one, but two excellent people when I had to call the central passport office, for instance. The nice lady called her supervisor over, and we all had a nice chat about how we couldn't possibly comment on what a useless twat some people are.

Other such places include: shops, IT helpdesks, anywhere involving other people.

Someone took out a hefty loan in my sister's name afew years ago. Some of the details were correct but many (including the address on the application) were wrong, not even close to being right. It was hugely worrying for her as it was for a few grand.

A number of 'investigators' came round to see her at home and try and get to the bottom of it. She was understandably really worried about being held liable for this debt but was very obviously not responsible and the banks investigators were really helpful and understanding. They seemed to suggest that this is quite a common thing

Eventually it was all sorted out - well, my sister was absolved of all blame/debt/trouble. We have no idea what happened to the cunts that took out the loan (and received the money!). Quite why the bank was so stupid as to give out the money and THEN check all the details were correct is beyond me.

Just been back to the branch and spent an hour talking with one of the managers there trying to sort it out. She's escalated it to their Customer Complaints department who will launch a full investigation immediately.

I've told them in no uncertain terms that the onus is on THEM to prove that I'm the account holder and not on me to prove that I'm not. I've said that I'm prepared to work with them on this, but that it's their investigation and not mine as I've done nothing wrong, hell I'm not even a customer!

I've also asked them for the following information:

1) Any information that the group holds about me (under the DPA)
2) When the account was opened
3) How it was opened (online, in-branch etc.)
4) The branch that processed the request to open the account
5) A summary of recent transactions on the account, including dates, amounts and locations.

They've taken a photocopy of my driving licence and confirmed that it is a genuine licence issued by DVLA (by sticking it under a UV lamp).

As the signature on my driving licence is different to the signature I've been using since 2003, they've also taken photocopies of the back of my bank cards with my new signature. I have copies of these copies

They also told me, perhaps unintentionally, that the account was opened with a driving licence as the identifying document. She wouldn't go into more detail other than to say that the licence differed slightly from mine, a couple of digits were different.

Based on this, the most likely scenario from my PoV is that there's some other cunt out there with my name and my birthday who's opened an account and defaulted on it, causing Lloyds TSB to try and recover the debt by trawling through records until they find anyone who could feasibly be him. Of course, if that's the case, then there MUST be some sort of law against that, right?

Have you tried googling your name? Never know..
Bit of a coincidence though, unless you've got a very common name.

My name is pretty damn common. I've done "ego searches" before and found that I'm actually the Head of Safety at eBay.

It's him! Lynch the bastard!

I'm really, really sorry to hear about this, Gazchap. I have no useful advice nor knowledge regarding this, but I do hope that you get it sorted out quickly and easily and that there are no long term effects. please do keep us updated on how you get on, it wouldn't surprise me if someone else here falls foul of such things in the future.

I hate banks that phone you up and then demand your name/address date of birth and mother's maiden name before trying to sell you a mortgage, and things like that. Who am I to know who this stranger with only a rudimentary grasp of English is that is calling me and demanding these details? I always refuse and hang up, check my account and ring my branch if I have any concerns at all.

Are you in charge of five buttons there?

Even better than that, SIX!


Yeah, if I'm ever called by anyone requesting those details I tell them where to stuff it. Common sense really. But for some reason when I received a written letter it didn't occur to me that that also could be fraudulent.

As it turned out, it wasn't fraudulent, but it could have been.

My ego searches suggest that I have written a best selling book about cheese.

I saw an episode of The Real Hustle where they phoned up a person and were obviously dodgily trying to ask for his account details. Clearly they didn't fall for it, and nor did they want her to. She then of course logged on to her internet bank and checked that no money had gone missing, as you'd be right to do.

The hustle came because they'd been into her office earlier in the day posing as repair men or IT staff or something, and had installed keylogging software on the computers, so she effectively just typed out her username and password for them.

Lloyds probably will not give you much information about the specifics of the account; they're dealing with a crime and within the realms of the Proceeds Of Crime laws. Effectively if the staff give you too much information about an account subject to that, the staff member leaves themselves personally open to (I think) unlimited fines and imprisonment.

At least, that's what I think it said last time I did some statutory training on it.

I do not work for Lloyds though.

Apologist.

* puts on best Axl Rose voice

Knock, knock, knocking on GazChaps do-or!

Unfortunately not.

Well, I've just had a letter through the post from Sechiari, Clark & Mitchell, Solicitors. They're requesting immediate payment of £636.93 within 7 days, or "court proceedings may be issued against you without further reference."

Cunts.

I've not heard ANYTHING since from Lloyds TSB apart from "We're looking into it so here's a copy and pasted form letter just to prove that we don't give a shit about people."

This is a clear breach of the data protection act, and as such you should sue the asses off them. Go and see your local CAB and get a solicitor who will act for you and open legal proceedings. They will have this sorted within the week.

Interestingly, I've just searched for "Lloyds TSB identity fraud" and this page came up. Skip down to the heading "I had to battle Lloyds TSB for a year" and have a read.

It sounds like exactly the same thing has happened to me, except the police have given me a crime reference number in my case.

I wonder what would happen if an existing Lloyds customer (me) were to send a letter to Lloyds, telling them how appalled I am about their poor handling of your case, and if they don't shift their arse I will take it as a sign that they're not people worth banking with. I wonder if threats like that would do any good.