Debt Collection Letters - advice

[NikNak]

Just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on a situation which has come to light today please.

On Saturday my husband received two letters from a debt collection agency, they were dated a day apart and one said they were chasing an outstanding payment of £37 on behalf of PayPal and the other said thank you for agreeing to pay this back at £4 per month. I straight away though this was a scam because although we use paypal, we have cards and a bank account linked to our account and we have never had any emails or messages from them chasing payment for anything.

We just ignored the letters however today another one came in the post confirming the direct debit arrangements for the repayments. The letter had my husband's name and address on it however we didn't recognise the bank details. My husband phone the debt collection agency, who then advised him to call PayPal and to cut a long story short, it transpired that a family member has opened a PayPal account using my husband's name and address! They used their own email address though which explains why we weren't aware of this debt until now and to say my husband is fuming is an understatement!

Other than a mortgage, neither of us have any debt and we have a very good credit rating so it's disappointing if this will negatively affect it. Does anyone know if there's anything we can do about this? I'm also a bit concerned that this may not be the only account that has been set up in his name but until such time as payments are being chased I don't know how we would find out.

[taylaboo]

Surely the person who did this has committed fraud. I would contact paypal to explain what has happened, and also check your bank statements. I would be livid if this happened to us.

[Blue nose]

I use Clearscore which gives a free credit report online. You can check what accounts are open. Mine has mobile bills, water bills, bank account and mortgage as they are all DD payments.

You need to report this to the Police as it's fraud. You will then need to keep an eye to make sure it's remove from your DH records. Check your own too as your file will be linked to DH and his 'bad' credit can affect yours.

[Jakey Neverland]

Agree with the others you need to report to the police.

[floridasgirl]

Oh my goodness! I'm not surprised he is not happy!
Depending on the situation regarding the family member, I would definately report as fraud!
That just shows how easily fraud can happen! Not really sure how you can end up in debt to PayPal though as thought you need it set against a bank account or credit card?

[colin39]

fmotl/forum/index.php

Its a lot of reading and looking but here is the help i can offer, its not forced or spam its just inteligent reading and advise.

Sorry if i have broken any rules ,if i have please delite

[Princesa]

I’d be checking to see if that’s the only thing they’ve applied fraudulently for. £37 is an odd amount to commit fraud for.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by NikNak

Just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on a situation which has come to light today please.

it transpired that a family member has opened a PayPal account using my husband's name and address!

Does anyone know if there's anything we can do about this?

I'm also a bit concerned that this may not be the only account that has been set up in his name but until such time as payments are being chased I don't know how we would find out.

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Firstly in answer to your last point, it's imperative that you obtain a copy of your husbands (and yours for good measure) credit report.

clearscore/ - Is free and will cover all the essentials.

As for what you can do about it that depends on whether you want to involve the Police or not. The "family member" has committed a crime at the end of the day.

[novocastrian]

must have also setup a bank account in your husbands name ? how did you work out who it was?

although its family I would be onto the police as above all this for 37 quid.. must be more going on.. not wanting to worry you obviously

[NikNak]

Thanks for all the advice, my husband is on the phone to PayPal's fraud department but has been on hold for the last 55 minutes!

The bank account that is being used for the repayments is not one of ours, so we're guessing he's used his own account for it. We could see this from the direct debit instruction that arrived in the post today. The debt collection agency gave us the email address that was linked to the reference number on the letters so we were able to work out who it was from that.

I've done credit checks for us both and I can't see anything suspicious yet, but I've no idea how long it would take to show. I'll definitely keep an eye on it though.