Had a strange phone call today

[the_runt69]

Had a call from an loan comapny today to say that the £5K loan I applied for on-line had been approved. Funny thing is I havnt applied for a loan and they had my name, address and bank details. Now a bit worried and gonna check with the bank tomorrow to find out if any standing orders for other loans i havnt applied for have been coming in.

[tigersaw]

I dont think anything can happen until you sign on the dotted line - and if someone was stealing your identity, I doubt they would give your phone number as well, unless this loan company looked it up? Did you ask that?
nevertheless - talk to the bank to be sure. Do you do online banking? I stopped that 2 years ago after fraud, I still dont trust it.

[MiniMatt]

Sounds a bit suspect. Definitely worth checking but I guess there's a good chance it's a sales call - the telephone equivilant of those credit card letters everyone gets through the post - "Congratulations, you've been pre-approved for our Platinum/Titanium/Inventium credit card!".

Definitely check it out though. What was the loan company? Probably worth ringing them back too and stating categorically that you've not applied for any loan and are suspecting fraud.

EDIT: Sorry, just reread and noticed they had your bank details too? That sort of thing definitely wouldn't / shouldn't be on any sales database and it's now beginning to sound v. dodgy :(

[Baph]

IMO (and strictly IMO), it wasn't a loan company at all that phoned you.

You just confirmed your bank details over the phone to an unknown person. Chances are far higher that they've got your details from somewhere, and called you with the bogus story of a loan so that you'll confirm bank details whilst in shock about being "given" £5k.

Contact your bank ASAP & ask their advice. I suspect cancelling all bank/credit cards that are legitimate and only using new issued cards would be a good step.

[the_runt69]

Didnt confirm my bank details with them, made sure of what they had and denied all knowledge, have phoned the bank this morning and made sure NO standing orders are started without them phoning me first. and have started a credit check of all my last transactions to make sure nothing bogus has got in there.

[tomjones2]

Online banking isn't the only way to be defrauded, plenty of other way unfortuantley. As far as I know not disposing of posted forms properly is an easy way to get defrauded.

One of my family recived a call trying to confirm there hsbc details, I suspect that a part of the database had been stolen and they were trying to get the rest as they new all but a few key pieces of data.

I'm not sure but is there now a cental idenidty theft db that you can get yourself put on which offers you more protection?

[Wideboy]

i just had my card cloned on my nationwide account but i only had £5 in it and its getting refunded bye the bank but still scary only used the card twice this year at same cashpoint

[emcf]

have a check for the loan company here -

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/

[Steve H]

have a check for the loan company here -

Loan Shark Theiving Bast*rds.com :nomore:

[tomjones2]

i just had my card cloned on my nationwide account but i only had £5 in it and its getting refunded bye the bank but still scary only used the card twice this year at same cashpoint

Dont know if your aware of it but I think this is how it works. Theives put a reader over the box at the cashpoint to collect card details. They also have a covert camera on a building or something to collect pin numbers. They can then clone the cards.

[Wideboy]

yeah i know the cam is usually above the keypad hidden in plastic wire casing but the scary thing is i checked for all these and always do

[Moffatt666]

Barclays have anti-card cloning blocks on the cashpoints but unfortunately they look like card cloning devices.