Someone Fraudulently Used My Name For An Electric Bill In A Different City.

Hello community,

I would really appreciate your advise and how I may proceed/relevant bodies to contact in regards to a matter I will outline below.

First of all, I will give some context to this situation. Before 2019 I used to live in Leicester, and had a brief relationship with my ex-boyfriend at the time who lived at a shared property, I wasn't living there contractually but I did stay over in the brief period he lived there (between September 2019-Nov 2019). He actually asked the landlord to sever his contract early due to problems with the other house mates who moved in before him (noise nuisance, general problematic behaviour, drugs/alcohol etc.). He didn't have any arrears for bills or rent, he paid everything before moving out.

After he moved out at the end of 2019, the other people carried on living at the house, and I had long moved to Liverpool, and have been living in Liverpool since 2020. I'm no longer with the ex-bf and haven't been since 2020, I also haven't been in touch with the other people since 2019.

Fast forward to now, and I rather unexpectedly get an arrears letter, in my name but to my address in Liverpool. The bill is for Octopus energy, on behalf of UK Search Limited, who have tracked me down and been instructed to recover a whopping £990 for a bill between 2022-2023. Now this comes as a shock, not only because I'm obviously not liable for this bill, but because someone has used my name fraudulently to register an account in my name unbeknownst to me. So 2024 is the first I heard f this problem.

I have of course contacted the relevant companies and gave them copies of council tax bills for the Liverpool property dating back to 2021 (although I can supply earlier copies too), but the bill I'm being held accountable for is at the Leicester address for the years 2022-2023. Now it's not hard for me to prove I haven't lived at the address, but that's besides the point, it's a lot of stress and it's eating away at my time.

I have also found a number for the house owner/agency who owned the house back then, and have wrote to them, but haven't heard back yet.

Could you please advise me how to proceed, this is obviously fraud and I haven't been in this situation before.

Thank you for your time.