Appointed a director. Without knowing….

I’ll tread carefully here because I’ve got into trouble with this sort of thread in the past.

My F-i-L has received a letter from companies house informing him of his duties as a director of a company. It’s true, he is listed as a director and secretary of a company listed at CH. I think it’s some sort of community housing management company. Except he knows nothing about it.
So, it’s a scam of some sort. He’s had problems with people scamming money off him (previous thread) and so presumably his details are available to some unscrupulous people now but what are the implications of this? And what should he do?

Cheers

First place to call would be companies house, they should be able to confirm or deny stuff and would probably be interested.

what are the implications of this? And what should he do?

the implications are he’s resposibible for the company’s actions (or inaction), and any rules it breaks. The fines for simply not filing a return get quite big, quite fast, for instance. If the ‘company’ is doing this they certainly don’t plan to do anything else by the book. The person behind it will be someone who’s already been struck off as a director for misconduct or bankruptcy and is unable to use their own name / details to register as a result.

what he should do is tell Company’s house about it. And if he knows who’s given his details to them then tell the police about it.

EDIT and with some urgency – Company’s house aren’t super fast at sending out paperwork – whatever the person behind this is planning to do they may already have done.

Ok thanks. Phone call tomorrow.

He has no idea where the details came from. It seems a V small company, previously 6 shareholders at £1 each. The address for the Co was changed last week to a different part of the country at the same time my FiL was appointed.

Company’s House should have (online) documents related to the appointment of directors. You should be able to look at these now to see when this happened.

They do. It just says he was appointed but there’s no signature or anything. There are accounts (micro accounts) submitted last summer but not much else.

I’ve emailed companies house and will ring them tomorrow.

Edit: Is it worth contacting the police today?

As above, just get in touch with Companies House.

I wouldn’t worry too much about it though – adding a Director takes 5 mins and is just a case of filling out a few fields on a web form. I could do it now and just find some random details from the telephone book.

But the intentions of such an action in your case sound very dodgy but CH will be able to advise.

I’m just disappointed I’ve read all the “what happened last time” stuff and can’t see what it’s about in your forum history.

It can also be a be part of ID theft.

Credit checks for company directors can be fairly generous / low level, so if the magic words appear on an application form for a top end mobile phone contract say, along with other ID, possibly gained earlier, then your FiL might find himself being signed up to various contracts and schemes that allow fraudsters to take off with valuable items or cash.

Check out his credit history with Experian asap.

Might also be worth letting his bank know, and ask them not to change any personal details without additional validation. Also check the details the bank does currently hold, particularly mobile phone number / email address. If they don’t match, it could be a sign of fraud.

I’d do this today online for Experian, rather than wait for any Companies House response.

Maybe go into bank branch tomorrow (with a passport and DL) …if there is a local branch anymore.

What Andrew said!

Thanks.

I’ve done experian but waiting for an answer at the moment. We’ll be off into the bank tomorrow. Fortunately we’re on holiday this week so can do.

The thing alluded to at the start involved a fraudulent payment made with paypal which the bank initially refunded and then took back saying it was all in order. Once we pointed out that he didn’t have a PP account they gave him the money back again. It’s quite possible there’s some identity theft here. My wife tells me that £4.5k was taken out of his savings last week by a company selling kebab meat roasters…..

Thanks everyone for the input and advice.

Has he clicked on anything he shouldn’t on his phone, computer or tablet?

Install a good virus checker

his phone, computer or tablet?

Landline, pen and paper and blood thinners. lol

Not to be indelicate but how is his mental state? Is it possible people are phoning/coming to the door and he is not remembering/understanding what happened? (I ask because blood thinners can cause some really odd side effects)

I would be going to the police, for sure. And changing all banking details etc. It seems he has been a victim of theft already and it seems equally obvious that a fraud has/is about to be committed in his name. Even if you just get a crime number with a date and nothing else, I suspect that will go a long way to fending off future problems.

I have a tendency to be flippant but I’m aware this is potentially quite serious. Have now contacted the bank and phoned the police. Apparently the police have a national organisation that deals with this stuff called actionfraud and they investigate and then pass on to the appropriate regional police force. I’m just putting this in for anyone else’s future reference.

Not to be indelicate but how is his mental state?

Thanks for raising this. We’re quite aware of this side of things as his wife died last year after a year or so in care because her dementia had got to the stage that she couldn’t be cared for at home. He’s ok although not brilliant. I think his biggest problem is that his generation and background mean that he naturally trusts people rather than being suspicious. There are cold calls that he responds to and that is probably how the information has been gained to steal his identity. There’s some wicked people out there. 🙁

I was going to suggest Action Fraud, you should also probably have a discussion around lasting power of attorney, although if he doesn’t feel his judgement is poor and has no concerns his mental health might decline (is declining)  then it could be a struggle to convince him it’s a good idea.

Actionfraud – otherwise known as inactionfraud I’m afraid, so don’t expect them to be in anyway proactive 😕

Older folk are more trusting because in their era a lot was taken on a person’s word. Not only that but as we age the part of our brains that governs belief begins to fade away. My Mum aged 89 has also narrowly escaped a couple of frauds, only our intervention has saved her.

Does seem weird, I know that to become a Director you need to provide signatures and evidence of who you are…passport is a good one along with a bill/bank statement and photo id driving licence.

All good advice thanks.

POA already in place (as for my dad who’s a bit younger and still my tech guru when I can’t solve PC problems!)
Trouble is ID as he has no passport or driving licence. Just bills and maybe a bus pass with a photo.

I know that to become a Director you need to provide signatures and evidence of who you are…passport is a good one along with a bill/bank statement and photo id driving licence.

I’m not so sure that you do these days – I created my company (and therefore registered myself as a director) online with CH a couple of years ago – don’t recall any physical documents being involved – either for proof of signature or address.

I set my company up 6 years ago and you definitely had to print off and return a physical copy of the Memorandum of Association.

However, “proof” of ID? Nope. NI number and that’s it I think. I doubt very much you need to prove ID for a new director.

Companies House is not fit for purpose (qv Aaron Banks et al).

Best of luck sorting this out OP.

Just a leftfield suggestion, but it’s not because he owns a flat (eg an investment property or similar), is it? Could it be a leaseholder’s management company that been recently formed and he’s been co-opted to be a director?

I think it is, or was, a leaseholder management company but it’s at the other end of the country and there’s absolutely no connection. According to CH records there was a change of correspondence address (to somewhere in the middle of the country) and change of director + secretary (both my FiL) last week. This follows on from him being called twice, once by someone purporting to be from the bank saying there was a breach of security (we think this is a scammer) then by someone from the bank to say they’d intercepted a fraudulent transfer of his money from his savings account which has now been refunded. The bank have a record of this latter call and say that the money and account were accessed by telephone banking methods. I think the first caller, who didn’t ask for details but may have already had them and simply confirmed them, was then able to impersonate my FiL by telephone banking and get the money. Whether this is co-incidence or the same person who has made him a director I don’t know. Anyway, all reported and hopefully dealt with now so we’ll see what happens.

Thanks again for your concern and help.

Wow.

That seems a pretty sophisticated scam.

Make sure that you keep on top of this one. If the b*****ds have put in that much effort, I can’t see them just leaving it alone.

So the faked company (with him as director) was the initial destination for the transfer of funds, in order to try to get past fraud checks?

Been on holiday so apologies for radio silence.

So the faked company (with him as director) was the initial destination for the transfer of funds, in order to try to get past fraud checks?

I’m not convinced there’s any connection although my FiL and the lady in the bank thought it was plausible. The company that took the money was something totally different, something to do with kebab roasting equipment…

Pretty clear who you need to speak to

I had some experienc of minor fraud like this with my late elderly father. In the end we got BT call minder to prevent cold calling scams and cancelled all his cards as he was happy withdrawing cash in person at the bank once a week with all bills managed online by us.
Good luck and yes there are some unscrupulous b***ards out there!

and cancelled all his cards as he was happy withdrawing cash in person at the bank once a week with all bills managed online by us.

a precaution I’ve taken with an elderly relative is scratching the CSC number of the back of the cards – so they can still use the cash machine and make face to face transactions but can’t so easily be tricked into making transactions over the phone