A couple of weeks ago I got a letter that we would have normally dismissed as junk mail and trashed it, but for some reason my wife opened it and showed it to me. It started out Dear Member, Thank you for joining DCU. It went on to tell me my pin number to access my account. Needless to say I curious and puzzled by this. I went on line to see who this DCU was. Everything I could find pointed to them being a legitimate credit union called Digital Federal Credit Union based in Marlborough, MA. I called them and spoke with their Risk Management department and reported a case of possible fraud saying I did not apply for an account with their CU. They said they would freeze the account immediately and open an investigation. The next day I received a second letter with my member number on it along with all the services they offer. Two days after that I got another letter with a Visa Debit Card in it. A fourth letter arrived from the Risk Management dept saying they concluded their investigation and determined I was not the person responsible for opening the account and they would contact all three credit reporting agencies and have any credit pulls removed from my record.
I had already checked all three credit agencies and determined that no credit inquiry came from DCU. So how do I get an account opened by someone else without there ever having been a credit check? I actually have credit freezes on my credit. Can just anyone just walk into a bank or CU and open an account in someone else's name without proper vetting? I have had the same CU account for 35 years and have no recollection of what I had to do to open it or if my credit was checked at the time.
I can't figure out how a scammer could benefit from this since all the correspondence came to me so they would have to know I would be aware of it or just hope I trashed it like I almost did. Could this be a case of account padding by the CU. There have been charges in the past with CC companies creating false account to pad their numbers to I guess make them look better to stock holders. Maybe they just randomly find a persons name and address and create accounts for them just hoping they will start using their services. Maybe there is something else I am missing here. The one thing I do regret is I didn't ask if there was actually any money in the account. I just asked if their had been any activity in the account and they said no. I think they would have mentioned it if money had been deposited.
Any ideas?
I had already checked all three credit agencies and determined that no credit inquiry came from DCU. So how do I get an account opened by someone else without there ever having been a credit check? I actually have credit freezes on my credit. Can just anyone just walk into a bank or CU and open an account in someone else's name without proper vetting? I have had the same CU account for 35 years and have no recollection of what I had to do to open it or if my credit was checked at the time.
I can't figure out how a scammer could benefit from this since all the correspondence came to me so they would have to know I would be aware of it or just hope I trashed it like I almost did. Could this be a case of account padding by the CU. There have been charges in the past with CC companies creating false account to pad their numbers to I guess make them look better to stock holders. Maybe they just randomly find a persons name and address and create accounts for them just hoping they will start using their services. Maybe there is something else I am missing here. The one thing I do regret is I didn't ask if there was actually any money in the account. I just asked if their had been any activity in the account and they said no. I think they would have mentioned it if money had been deposited.
Any ideas?
