Fraud markers

To try and stop fraud, financial businesses sometimes pass information to fraud prevention agencies, who hold information about people who’ve: 

• committed fraud in the financial services sector, and 

• been the victim of fraud or identity theft  

The agency will then add a 'marker' to the person’s file. Fraud-prevention markers are a valuable tool in the fight against fraud, but when mistakes are made, customers may find:  

• they can't open a bank account 

• their bank account is closed, and they can’t open another one 

• their mortgage application is rejected  

We can’t look at complaints against fraud prevention agencies themselves. But we can look at complaints about financial businesses that have passed information to a fraud prevention agency. 

You can go directly to a fraud prevention agency if you want to find out whether they hold information about you. You have a right to ask any organisation if they’re using or storing your personal information, and for copies of that information.

Getting copies of your information on the Information Commissioner’s Office website

If you believe that a bank, payment service, insurance company, loan company or any other financial firm has added information about you to a fraud prevention database unfairly, we can look into what happened. 

Our service

1. Before bringing your complaint to an ombudsman, you should make a formal complaint to the company involved.
2. If they don't send you a final response letter within eight weeks – or you're unhappy with their response – you can complain to an ombudsman.
3. Start by using our complaint checker, to make sure whether we can deal with your complaint. It will ask you about some of the things we need to know upfront and help you make sure you’re ready to send us your complaint.
4. Fill in our online complaint form. Your case will be assigned to a case handler who will get in touch when they start to investigate.
5. To help us consider a complaint fairly, we’ll ask you to provide more information.

Use or complaint checker

We’ll make our decision about what happened using evidence from you, the financial business and any relevant third parties. To reach a decision, we'll also consider:   

• the relevant law  

• any regulations that applied at the time  

• any industry codes of conduct in force at the time  

• any evidence the financial firm has to support their belief that you’ve been involved with fraud or another financial crime 

• whether the information about you on the database is accurate 

• whether the financial firm made a mistake or acted unfairly 

• you met the test for recording fraud markers set by the fraud prevention agencies – and they can show this 

 We'll tell you whether we believe you've been treated unfairly or not and explain how we reached our decision.  

If we think you've lost money because of the fraud marker against your name, we’ll tell the financial business to put things right. We may also tell them to pay you compensation for any distress or inconvenience you have suffered. 

Action Fraud is the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime. 

Citizens Advice offers guidance on what to do if you’ve been scammed. 

Victim Support is an independent charity that supports victims of crime: 

• Victim Support in England and Wales
• Victim Support in Scotland
• Victim Support in Northern Ireland

Age UK offer advice for the victims of fraud and scams 

The Serious Fraud Office has published a page listing organisations who offer support and advice for those affected by fraud and scams.