'I've spent 25 years fighting debts accrued by someone with my name - now the bailiffs are at my door'

Every week, we help a reader with their consumer issue or personal finance dilemma in our Money Problem series. You can send yours to moneyblog@sky.uk. Today, we answer this question...

"For more than 20 years, I have repeatedly been mistaken for another man who shares my name and date of birth. I am currently trying to resolve more than 30 incorrect entries across each of my Experian, Equifax and TransUnion credit files, while my wider case involves 20 organisations, including companies that have reported or pursued me for debts that are not mine. The consequences have gone far beyond my credit files."
Carl Graham Williamson

Money reporter Brad Young tackles this one...

Of all the reader questions I have investigated, this is the first time I have come across such a destructive case of mistaken identity.

Since turning 18, you've been held accountable for someone else's debts, leading to rejected mortgages, threatening letters, a court judgment and, in July, a bailiff attempting to enter your home.

It's no wonder you've taken more than two months off work due to stress.

"It's got progressively worse over the years. More and more letters, more and more errors on my credit file, many, many hours trying to resolve those incidents," you told me.

"It's incredibly impactful on me. I'm constantly pursued for debts that do not belong to me."

As of June, you said you found 30 errors on your credit file, including someone else's addresses, defaulted accounts, a county court judgment and searches.

Of these issues, 24 were associated with the credit reference agency TransUnion, four with Experian and two with Equifax, you said.

How on earth has this happened?

Records don't stretch back 25 years to offer us a definitive cause, but I can make an educated guess based on the way debts are pursued in the UK.

When a company can't locate the debtor with the information they already hold about them, it will carry out what's called a "trace".

All a trace is, really, is a review of the information held about the debtor by credit reference agencies and, potentially, by the electoral roll and other public records.

Whoever conducts the trace will judge what information is useful. At some point after your 18th birthday, a company traced a debtor who shared several personal details with you. The company felt misplaced confidence that you and he were in fact the same person.

They likely recorded this link on your credit file. Next time an organisation chasing the real debtor executed a trace, they would have seen a) your similar personal details and b) the recorded link, perhaps making it even more likely they'd think you were one person.

If the debt wasn't paid, they could have recorded another link. And so on it goes, with every new link potentially making every subsequent tracer more confident there was just one, liable Carl Williamson.

An example of this process was admitted by TransUnion in correspondence you showed me: "An incorrect address link reported to TransUnion by JC International has caused a data matching error and caused your credit report to be merged with another individuals [sic]," they wrote.

No industry standard exists

Another line in that letter stood out to me: "There is no standard key, such as a social security number, for the industry to use to match data."

Without such a key, several companies have made incorrect links on your credit file, leaving it in (I'm sure you won't mind me saying) an absolute mess - and no single organisation is obliged to clean it up.

When organisations supply a credit reference agency with information, the agency carries out automated checks on data quality, but it is the responsibility of the organisation providing the information to ensure it is accurate, the Information Commissioner's Office told me.

"Inaccurate data can have significant real-world consequences," it said.

"This is why accuracy is a fundamental requirement of data protection law."

Not that you need to be told that after a bailiff arrived at your door looking for £1,420 on 1 July.

"Angry and also scared," you said, when asked how you felt at the time.

"It was absolutely awful. It just made you feel powerless."

CDER Group sent you four penalty charge notices after tracing a debtor on behalf of Transport for London regarding four unpaid ULEZ fines.

On 16 June, you provided CDER with a letter from the DVLA to prove you had no connection to the vehicle, but an enforcement officer arrived two weeks later.

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"This is someone physically trying to get into my home. I've got children in my house," you said, adding they were aged nine, 13 and 16.

"I don't want them to see what's going on."

You estimate you spent 52 hours trying to resolve this case alone, including 22 phone calls, numerous emails, four statutory declarations, research, evidence gathering, obtaining legal advice and solicitor appointments.

CDER offered you £500 compensation.

That's £9.60 an hour for the seven working days you spent resolving the issue. For reference, minimum wage is £12.71.

I asked CDER why they didn't pause enforcement action after you made contact on 16 June.

They told me: "Mr Williamson... was asked to provide evidence to confirm he was not the intended recipient. He refused. As a result, the enforcement process continued."

But a recording of your telephone call you shared with me suggests otherwise.

CDER's call handler asked you to "get evidence from the DVLA and prove that you've never been the registered keeper of the vehicle".

"Until you send us the proof that you're not the registered keeper of the vehicle, unfortunately, we will be continuing to enforce the debt," they said.

They declined to pass you on to a manager and ended the call.

You showed me an email sent to CDER that evening containing a letter from the DVLA you had obtained in February while challenging a separate erroneous link to the same vehicle.

The letter read: "I've checked our records and can confirm that your (current and previous) addresses are not recorded under the current or previous keeper details.

"If you receive any further correspondence, you should return it to the issuing authority confirming that you have no knowledge of the vehicle. I suggest you enclose a copy of this letter as evidence.

"I have placed a copy of your correspondence on the vehicle record for future reference."

I asked CDER why this letter did not give them enough pause for thought to suspend enforcement action while the matter was investigated.

"There was a delay in reviewing evidence Mr Williamson provided to show he was not the person named on the warrant. As a result, an enforcement visit took place," said a CDER spokesperson.

"Mr Williamson then contacted us again and his evidence was escalated for review. Because of a misunderstanding about the origin of the address details, the evidence he first sent was not accepted."

During the call, the handler told you twice that CDER obtained your address from Transport for London.

In a letter I've seen, Transport for London told you: "TfL had no record linking the vehicle or PCNs to your address."

It turns out, CDER admitted to me, your address was provided via a trace search with TransUnion.

"Once our complaints team had carried out a further review of the case, they wrote to him on 28 July confirming that his address had been removed and apologising for the inconvenience caused," the CDER spokesperson said.

"CDER is sorry for the distress caused by this error and has offered Mr Williamson a consolatory payment of £500, the highest level available through our complaints process."

While the ICO does not comment on individual cases, it told me: "When organisations become aware that information may be inaccurate, we expect them to investigate promptly, correct any errors identified, and take reasonable steps to prevent similar issues occurring again."

They continued: "Where two individuals have similar personal details, organisations should ensure their matching and verification processes are robust enough to distinguish between them."

How to put an end to it?

You've already raised several cases with the Financial Ombudsman Service and contacted the Information Commissioner's Office, which would have been my first ports of call. Their investigations are ongoing.

And you've complained to Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, so you're well ahead of the game.

TransUnion, which you associated with the lion's share of errors, upheld a complaint, apologised and offered you £300 compensation.

I asked whether this was an appropriate amount, what safeguards were in place to prevent a repeat and why these safeguards weren't working.

"Every month we receive hundreds of millions of personal data records from numerous sources. We devote considerable effort and expertise to ensure we match all incoming data correctly, so that we get the most complete picture possible of an individual's identity and credit history," a spokesman said.

"We have a very high success rate, but in the rare instances we fall short of our usual high standards, we aim to rectify any errors as quickly as possible."

They declined to comment on your case until the Financial Ombudsman Service made a judgement.

Equifax said they investigated their records and removed incorrect links, but advised they cannot prevent other organisations from creating links between addresses in future, only support your disputes. They did not uphold your complaint.

Experian said it had challenged the credit file reports you raised with them and your Experian report "is now clear of any information belonging to another person".

"We've taken additional steps to prevent further errors occurring," a spokesman said.

"Cases where someone is incorrectly linked to another person are extremely rare, but when they do happen, our specialist teams work with the organisations involved to get the information corrected and removed as quickly as possible."

So, if everyone does their job properly, your credit file should be given a clean slate devoid of any errant links, but another incorrect link could be made if a tracing company makes the same mistake one did when you were 18.

There isn't any way to prevent that happening, according to the credit reference agencies.

Experian said you could conduct free checks on your file regularly and it would support you in tackling errors.

They provided me with a designated senior contact to help you going forward, which I've shared.

I asked the ICO how cases of mistaken identity can be prevented from recurring.

"The law requires organisations to take appropriate steps to ensure accuracy, but it cannot guarantee that mistakes will never occur," it said.

"Regulators, including the ICO, have powers to require organisations to address compliance concerns where appropriate. However, no regulator can provide an absolute guarantee that a particular error will never occur again."

The ICO said it expected organisations to "identify the cause of repeated inaccuracies and take effective steps to minimise the risk of recurrence".

Could the UK's three tracing agencies create an alert that activates whenever an organisation requests tracing data for a debtor with Carl Williamson's name, birth date and region, the text of which would urge extra caution before generating a link?

I asked the ICO, which said organisations were responsible for their own processes.

Case raises serious questions, says MP

That's not enough, according to Chris Webb, MP for Blackpool South, where Carl is based.

"Carl Williamson's case raises serious questions about accountability and safeguards in the system used to trace individuals and link them to debts," he said.

"No one should have to spend years fighting to prove that someone else's debts are not theirs, particularly when the consequences can include damage to their credit record, threats of enforcement action and profound distress.

"It's right that organisations take steps to correct errors when they are identified but correcting a mistake is not enough if it can happen again. There must be robust safeguards to prevent it from recurring and the burden should not fall on innocent individuals to repeatedly challenge inaccurate information across multiple organisations.

He concluded: "I believe this case highlights the need to look seriously at whether the current system provides adequate protection for people affected by mistaken identity, and what changes to legislation or practice may be needed to prevent others experiencing the same ordeal."

JC International did not respond to a request for comment.

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