Scam experts?

horse

Wondering if anybody knows what's happened here:

At the beginning of December I received a bunch of letters to my address with similar but slightly differing names - the first initial and surname always the same, but varying female firstnames.

At the time I wondered whether they related to one of my neighbours daughter-in-laws, but as they are useless at sorting anything out and we're not on great terms I decided to just follow the Citizen's Advice website and return them as 'not known at this address'.

Had a fairly steady although lessening stream since then. Sometimes the envelope has the sending company name, so a couple of weeks ago I called O2 and they updated their records. Today I live chatted vodaphone, and they asked me to open the letter - which turned out to be a 'account suspended' letter due to £100 unpaid...

So has somebody deliberately opened a bunch of various accounts against my address and run up short term bills / is this is common thing? I guess the main risk is against my credit rating and the pain in the arse of getting it all sorted?

Any tips / things I need to be aware of?

Cheers

midlifecrisis

im an expert on scams, first just send me £200 and your full bank account details to my nigerian PO box and il sort it out for you.

spark240

Well...I had some CC applications in my name ....in a nutshell....someone was stealing our post...

Ravenous

Sounds paranoid but I have a shredder and ANY junk/unneeded mail with my address on it gets shredded instead of put in the recycling.

My sister moved house and eventually started getting pestered by an old Christmas catalogue she had used at the PREVIOUS address.  Some miscreants renting the old house had ordered stuff from the catalogue, using her name, not paid and she was being expected to cover it!  £600 worth I think. (She obviously didn't pay but I doubt the catalogue got their money back.)

People will just try to take advantage, get out of paying for something by giving a false address or using whatever information they find.

57Deluxe

I don't trust shredders - I seen what they can do in SPOOKS... I burn all my personals or masticate and swallow...

CarpeDiem

It does sound like a scam. If you're concerned about your credit record, request a copy from at least one of the three agencies, eg Experian (statutory report costs £2). If your name has been used fraudulently, register your details with CIFAS.