A fraudulent Ovo Energy account has been opened in my wife's name

Hey ​@Julamax 

I’m really sorry to hear about this.

It does sound as though this has happened through the ‘Trace and Search’ process where we’re given details for who lives at a property by third party contacts such as Land Registries, Landlords, the Post Office etc. Sometimes the info we get given via this process can be wrong, as may have happened here by the sounds of it. 

If you’ve raised a complaint you should have been given a complaints reference number. You’ll also have a dedicated complaints handler who needs to remain in contact with you until this is resolved. If you’ve received an email with your complaints reference number I recommend replying to it and asking for an update, and asking them to reverse the Trace and Search and also recall the debt from the Debt Collector (these are both things we can do when the Trace and search process has gone wrong). 

It sounds as though it’s already been ongoing for some time for it to be at lawyer stage though, so if you’ve not already please do also raise a complaint.

The following similar topics may also be helpful here:

Do let us know how you get on with this.

Sorry to butt in Abby but the op has already stated:

“Because this account is now managed entirely by our legal partner, we must close your complaint from OVO’s side."

… so what’s the point of trying to raise a complaint again ?

Hi ​@alt 

We don’t have access to accounts here at the Forum so we can’t tell exactly how this has been dealt with up until now. We can only hazard guesses, as to whether the OP has dealt with anyone at OVO at all other than the response quoted above.

There are processes in place to deal with such events like a trace and search and from what it sounds like, they’ve not followed these before reporting it as a fraudulent account. I did link to topics which are similar and where correct process was followed. 

While it may not have a direct impact on outcome at this stage as they’ve been told that case has to dealt with by the case handlers directly, it’s recommended that they still open a complaint. As they mentioned it’s now gone so far, it would suggest this has been linked to them for some time, so I would ultimately think they’d already have one and a complaints handler, but if not it’s still recommended that they’d have an active complaint about something like this. 

We also don’t know who else might read these responses, like yourself, you’ve read this, so someone else with a similar issue may also read it. It’s better if they can then see what the correct process is, no matter what stage they read/find the information. While I may have responded to the OP and made some suggestions, the Forum is public and such information can be found by anyone.