I have no middle name or middle initial. Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps. That’s it. But for some years I’ve been receiving junk mail addressed to Cyril L. Fotheringay-Phipps. No idea why - I’m pretty confident that I’ve never filled anything out using that initial. But I don’t pay much attention to junk mail anyway.
Then one time I was filling out some papers at a mortgage closing and one paper the closer wanted me to sign was an acknowledgment that I “also do business as Cyril L. Fotheringay-Phipps”. I refused to sign this and the closer said no problem and we moved on to the next paper and all was well. But that created a thought in the back of my mind that one day it could perhaps become an issue. So I’m wondering if there’s some way to remove this notion from “the system” - or at least the system of anyone who counts.
I imagine there is not. But I figured I’d ask, just in case there is.
WAG: Somebody sometime entered your name that way into their mailing list, either as a typo or as an arbitrary choice when a form required a middle initial. Then they sold their mailing list to another marketer, who sold it to others. If it’s only been on junk mail, it probably isn’t in “the system of anyone who counts.”
Check your credit report. Probably some kind of entry with the random L. While clearing some crap in my credit report about 12 years ago, I found some entries with a different middle name than mine. Both started with the same letter. Challenged all the entries and they were removed.
Yes, and I don’t know whether that affects my answer or not. Maybe the closer did a search and “Cyril L. Fotheringay-Phipps” came up in connection with your address, just from being on those junk mail lists. I don’t know whether you’d count that as being “in their system.” I am, after all, just WAG-ing here.
Even if that speculation is correct, it would imply the potential for situations which matter being influenced by junk mail addresses. That’s my concern.
Way back in the day, several people I knew used to deliberately put in a bogus initial when signing up for magazines or conferences. Then, when they saw junk mail addressed with their middle initial, they knew the source.
So, in other words, I know exactly how to create a bogus/erroneous middle initial, but don’t know how to get rid of it, except to NUKE IT WITH FIRE FROM OUTER SPACE!
I think the Thudlow Boink theory is likely the correct one. A similar thing happened to me recently with our recent refinance. I have a Dutch origin surname of form “van Surname”, with no middle name. Junk mailers will screw this up in all sorts of creative ways: “Firstname Van”, “Firstname V. Surname”, “Firstname Surname”, etc. Many of these lame variations also ended up on the equivalent “also do business as” form.
I think the sources for the names on these forms are pretty broad. So maybe any time anyone doing a credit check fat fingers your name (or in my case ruins it with software written by lazy programmers that can’t deal with a space in a name) it gets associated with your credit report. Or maybe it’s even broader than credit checks, and they’re searching a whole variety of databases that have poor input quality control.
Yes; I used to do this. So now I know that all the junk mail that comes addressed to Hilarity V. Suze stems from my long-ago subscription to Vanity Fair. And when I say long-ago, I mean 20+ years. And I’m still getting it.
However, no one has ever accused me of doing business as Hilarity V. Suze on account of it, so I feel no need to get rid of the initial.
I have no middle name. In my family females use their maiden name as a middle name. When I first got a social security card as a youngun, for my first job, I was single. When I married I went to change my card to reflect my married name, They wouldn’t accept my maiden name as a middle name. The government shows my middle name as NMN, for no middle name. All things important like DL, mortgage and titles all say NMN. Now AARP sends me junk with NMN. Thanks government for selling my info. I await with baited breath all the good junk mail I will recieve because you were thoughtful enough to include me!!
Lots of times, when signing up for things, I used to make up a random middle initial, and keep track of them, so I see who was selling my name to junk mailers.
Purely anecdotal, but … my middle name, as written on my birth certificate, is just a capital letter “S”, no period. I write it with a small “s” when signing my name. It frequently shows up as “S.” (with a period) in documents I don’t generate.
So I see my full name written out as:
Cairo S Carol
Cairo s Carol
Cairo S. Carol
I’ve been waiting for this to cause some kind of problem somewhere, but although I’m 59 and have done all kinds of tax/mortgage/employment stuff in my life, it has never been an issue beyond someone occasionally asking me what the “S” is short for and I have to explain it’s not short for anything. I never even notice anymore whether documents say “S.” or “S” or “s”. (I just checked my passport out of curiosity, and it does have an exact match with my birth certificate.)
Of course, those variations aren’t quite as significant as the difference between a middle initial and no middle name at all.
.
And I’m reminded of a tale of an ice cream shop that gave away free cones to customers on their birthday. A couple of enterprising brothers invented a fake third brother, with a different birthday, to get more free ice cream. A decade later, when the fake brother would have turned 18, he got sent Selective Service forms.
That’s odd, because I also have no middle name and I’ve used my maiden name as my middle name for the last 34 years. Never had any problem with it at all - my SS card, my passport, my license, my bank accounts, my pension. You must have encountered a clerk with an attitude.
The mortgage company was just trying to cover their ass and tie up any potential loose ends. They probably did a search based on your address, and found something they thought they should handle just in case. Most people wouldn’t have refused to sign the paper, but since you challenged it, they didn’t have enough evidence to insist.
With computers and large databases nowadays, and a complete lack of concern for false positives, credit reporting companies’ computer programs will assume connections that a rational human would think ridiculous. They get more “points” to make an erroneous connection than they do to eliminate a questionable one. It’s pretty much up to the credit holder’s responsibility to challenge anything, and most challenges result in remove of the errant data. Conversely, some connections may turn out to be real.
I once had someone get a credit card carbon slip from the trash at a car rental place in Chicago, use the info to change my address in the card’s records to a private mail drop in Los Angeles, then charge up a bunch of stuff. When found out, the credit card company exonerated me without question, but for 30 years, the mail drop showed on my credit reports as a former address. If I had lived inside that box, I would have had to shrink considerably.
To remove this kind of info, you will have to contact all three credit bureaus and file a formal complaint. I doubt if it will be contested.
Did you ask them where this came from? I don’t have a middle name either, and also get all sorts of junk mail with random initials, but have never had a problem with anything official.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that a few places (not many) have a problem with leaving the middle name field blank.