You’re a new parent, you’re looking for a name for you new son. What better idea than to carry on the family name than to name your son after you. So little Johnny Jr. is born and you live a life of blissful pride as you watch your namesake grow and mature. “What a beautiful and enduring legacy we have created, right dear?” WRONG!
So What’s The Problem?
The problem is the credit reporting bureaus are extremely automated and if a name that is very similar and has other similar characteristics, such as a common address, their credit information is very easily mixed up and blended together.
So the problem is also when either Jr. or Sr. goes to the bank to get a loan and the loan officer is mentioning vehicle repossessions, charge off accounts, and other very damaging lines of credit, much to the dismay of the person who is applying for the loan, they exclaim to the loan officer, “That’s impossible! Those were my [dads/sons] accounts! How can they possibly be on my credit?”
The problem is because of the automation in the credit industry, it is very easy for similar names to be mixed in with similar credit reports, usually damaging one or the other’s credit history. Unfortunately, banks only care about what is printed in black and white on your credit reports, regardless if it’s factual or not.
How Do You Fix The Problem?
To correct the problem is a two-part process. You must first write a letter to the 3 credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion . The following are their addresses:
TransUnion
2 Baldwin Place
P.O. Box 2000
Chester, PA 19022
Experian
P.O. Box 2104
Allen, TX 75013-2104
Equifax
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
In the letter, you will want to briefly explain that the Jr. and the Sr. names and social security numbers have become mixed up in each other’s credit reports and that they need to be separated. You will need to send along with this letter a clear photo copy of your driver’s license, Social Security card, and a copy of a utility bill with your name and address on it to prove your identity and address.
You will then want to send a dispute letter to each of the credit bureaus disputing each account and its account number claiming it’s not yours with each of the credit bureaus.
The credit bureaus have 30 days (or a reasonable amount of time) to conduct their investigation. You will want to access your credit reports to get this information from www.annualcreditreport.com or from another reputable site such as www.truecredit.com.
Because the credit bureaus are usually slow to correct erroneous information, you may need to submit more than one dispute to get the information completely corrected. Plan on the process to take approximately 6 months to completely correct.
Once you have corrected the mixed identity issue, you may want to add a fraud alert to your credit reports by calling: 1-800-525-6285. This will add a 90-day fraud alert to all 3 of your credit reports, making it so that instant credit may not be obtained with your name or social security number. You may also want to register with www.optoutprescreen.com to prevent your information from being sold to solicitors and other mailing lists.
Finally, it’s always a good idea to subscribe to a credit monitoring service such as www.truecredit.com to keep an eye on your credit in case something comes up that you may not recognize.
