What looks like a fraud loan application

I received a phone call last Friday from AIB saying I had been approved for a 6K loan. I was a touch surprised as I hadn't even applied for one and told them so and after a bit of digging it seems someone tried to apply for a loan on my behalf using a fictitious car dealership as a cover. Luckily my AIB account was closed over a year and a half ago but a couple of things struck me about this. First of all it was strange that AIB did not register the fact that my account was closed when processing this loan request - I would have thought that should have registered some sort of warning on their side! Second of all it seems strange that they processed this application on the say so of some (made up) car dealer - is this how loans are normally requested and not from the account owner?
Also has anyone any advice as to what I should do to protect myself from any other possible impersonations against my personal details? I'm lucky that on this occasion no harm was done but just worried whoever did this may have other personal details of mine.

If you suspect fraud or identity theft then you should report it to the Gardaí.

Thanks Clubman but the thing is I don't have much detail to provide. AIB said they don't have much detail (no contact number or address) on the person who requested the loan (the fictitious car dealer) so I'm not sure what I could ask the Gardai to do. Would it be worth my while ringing them anyway and explaining the scenario just so there is a logged report of it in case anything further happens with other details of mine?

The first thing I would do is check my ICB report to see if there are any loans there that I don't know about......

The fact that you did/not have an account with AIB is irrelevant - one can apply for a loan with any bank, usually regardless of any existing relationship or not. So as far as the bank were concerned, you were just an old customer applying for a loan.

Ceist Beag said:

Would it be worth my while ringing them anyway and explaining the scenario just so there is a logged report of it in case anything further happens with other details of mine?

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I would definitely do this. If nothing else you can supply the name of the fictitious car dealership which the Gardai can then look out for in future fraud cases.

It might be an idea to contact any other financial institiutions that you have dealings with and let them know what has happened. Someone obviously has enough information about you to complete a loan application so maybe your banks etc could create a 'flag' on your account that there is an increased risk of fraud using your details.

You could also try contacting IFSRA but I wouldn't hold my breath over them dealing satisfactorily with consumer issues based on my own experience.