Identity theft

[barry8]

An account was taken out in my name without my knowledge or agreement.

The account bill was not paid.

Roger's never contacted me, but they did report a bad credit under my name, unpaid account, to the credit agencies.

Upon reviewing credit agency report, I contacted Roger's directly and reported to their fraud department and they refused to provide paperwork or particulars of the account citing privacy issues (there was a different email address and a different physical address on the account). Roger's fraud department refused to remove my name from the account.

Roger's is insisting I pay the bill and at the same time refusing to provide the account particulars, I believe this coercive behavior is known as extortion.

Desired outcome: All account information that Roger's has about the account in question be provided to work on a remedy, or simply remove my name from this obvious case of identity theft.

[RogersMaude]

Good day @barry8 ,

Welcome to the Rogers Community and thank you for your post! 

I understand the frustration caused by this situation and we appreciate you're taking the time to bring this up to our attention.

Normally, the collection agency contacting you pertaining to this debt is able to provide the account number in question as well as the date it was created/closed. Do you know whether it was for wireless or residential services?

When you got in touch with our Fraud Prevention department, did they ask you to provide pieces of ID or give you any explanation why they held you responsible for that activation?

We'd like the opportunity to access your account to take a deeper look into this. Please send a private message to @CommunityHelps to get started. For details on our private messaging system, click here.

RogersMaude

[barry8]

I called bill collection at Rogers, gave my name and they picked up the account and were able to identify the exact amount of money owed as indicated on the credit bureau records: -they informed me I owed money and would not remove it from my record, dispite the fact I indicated I did not open the account.  I told them that I did not open the account and that the falsified record of a failed payment on record was restricting my ability to get a discount in my home insurance.  They indicated that if I paid the bill they would remove this mark from my credit and transfer me to the fraud department to deal with the identity theft.  I paid the bill . . .  waited for transfer for over an hour and then the line cut me off.  I called back and explained the issue and was transferred to the fraud department.  They acknowledged I paid the bill, but given the fact I did not have the identifiers I needed for them to talk about the account - account number,  phone number address or email associated with the account - they would not give me any information on the account, citing privacy legislation. 

They then told me I have to go to the police to claim that I am a victim of identity theft. 

This is unacceptable behavior by any legitimate company in Canada. 

When the company inappropriately assigned my name to an account that I did not know about or endorse, Roger's committed a crime.  By affecting my credit history, and then insisting I pay the bill before transferring to fraud protection and now hiding behind privacy legislation.

I wonder how many other people have had similar experiences?  

As for credit bureau information all that is provided is "ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS CANADA INC" no account number no phone number. 

[Datalink]

Personal opinion, you should not have paid the bill.  All that accomplished was to reward Rogers for their poor practices when it comes to verifying personal consumer information and detecting fraudulent information when its submitted.  If you paid the bill via credit card, I'd call the credit card company to dispute the charge and have it stopped.  

Your beef is with Rogers and with the Credit Ratings Agencies.  Rogers, like other companies appear to hide behind privacy legislation in order to prevent you from determining what false information was submitted to Rogers in order to obtain stolen services.  The Credit Ratings Agencies (Equifax Canada and Transunion Canada) are not your friends and you will have to take them to task to correct your credit rating and remove any references to this incident.  You do not need Rogers assistance to remove a false report from your credit file.  You can contact Equifax and Transunion yourself, and I highly recommend that you do.  Ask for a credit report (it should be free).  Check all of your contact details on file.  Don't be surprised to see that some of the information has been changed without your knowledge.  Ask for all of the details regarding this incident to be purged from your credit file, your credit rating restored to is previous level, and ask for a credit alert to be placed on your file, indicating that you're a confirmed victim of ID theft.  

When you indicated that "Roger's never contacted me, but they did report a bad credit under my name, unpaid account, to the credit agencies." is that to mean that Rogers had reported the unpaid account to Equifax or sent the bill to a collections agency.  

The only factual statement you were told was to go to the police and file a police report.  That will provide some basis for your identity theft recovery.  

Here's a link to a few steps:

https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/competition-bureau-canada/en/fraud-and-scams/tips-and-advice/how-re...

Please read thru that page.  I definitely recommend steps 2 and 3.  I'd file a police report prior to calling Equifax and Transunion, or call them afterwards with the police report number.  

I'll follow this up with a private message.  When you're logged into the forum, follow the envelope symbol in the upper right hand corner.  That serves as a link to your inbox/sentbox.  

[Annie214]

Hi Barry
Did your problem get resolved? I am having the same problem right now. An unpaid account with outstanding balance over $1400 is under my name without my consent and it appeared on my credit report. I called rogers, after they went through a month of investigation, they closed my fraud case and concluded no fraud. What should I do at this point? Rogers fraud agent never called me for details. Looking forward to hear back from you.