A few days ago either a fraudulent claim or mistaken identity resulted in my bank accounts being frozen as “community property” for some spouse that I don’t have. Apparently someone defaulted on their credit cards and a collection agency thinks I am married to that person. I wasn’t even served with any notice personally but who ever was served didn’t go to court or pay.
While I did contact a lawyer to address the issues I will have to live off my emergency cash for a period of time and I will have a judgement tied to my name with a differing address to effect all future background checks. As the collection agency tries hard to find some marriage record they can tie to me over the next 10 days I will be living on a very restricted budget.
The fun part is I can’t even find out if it was mistaken identity or if it was due to identity theft because I was not alleged to be a co-signer but just a target for community property I have no rights to see what the claimed debt obligation was.
While the term Kafkaesque is probably over used it is perfect for this case. Just as Kafka never finish any of his novels, I will never know if this nightmare is over or what that ending was.
Identity theft or mistaken identity when mixed with community property laws and credit protection laws creates a huge mess.
Wow, this sounds like a real nightmare. And it’s a type of problem I’ve never heard of before. If you don’t start to see any progress towards a resolution, you might consider contacting someone in the media (perhaps the consumer affairs reporter in the newspaper or TV station?).
I’m glad this thread came up. A while ago I posted in GQ because I was receiving someone else’s mail at my address. He’d lived with his brother for a while, but is now out of state. My house number and his brother’s house number are the same. Or street names sound very similar. Someone made a mistake when he changed his address to his brother’s house.
Anyway, he received an official letter from the State of Illinois the other day, and I keep forgetting we have it. Thanks to this thread, I called the person’s mother, so his brother can come get it.
Normally I think you must be able to put this in front of a judge immediately to get an injunction to unfreeze at least enough to live on. I’m not sure whether it’s worth the expense if you expect a resolution fairly promptly. Is there a concern about the shutdown affecting court proceedings where you are?
I am a savings person and view credit cards as a personally dangerous thing. I have one small limit card to help with my FICO score and yes it still works but has a tiny limit.
It is county court but the court case load precludes a hearing until later this week or next week. As the collection agency is local I am hoping they correct the error before.
As I have zero visibility behind this it may be that they assume “my wife’s” accounts have enough for living expenses.
I don’t think this happens often and my lawyer searched through public records and PACER to see why they would think I was married and can’t find it.
Most likely the person who had the credit cards put my name or a similar name as a spouse. As I asserted I am not married the credit agency will not share information about the debt with me or my counsel as that would be violating fair credit laws.
I expect that the collection agency is desperately combing through marriage records and announcements trying to make a connection to protect their claims as they probably bought the debt. I don’t know how much effort they will make but they will probably release my funds after they don’t find anything.
That’s above and beyond and you probably don’t want to make a habit of it. IMO the best way to deal with that is cross out the address, write “NOT AT THIS ADDRESS” and put it in a mailbox.
I recommend you keep track of any costs you incur as a result of having your bank accounts frozen, because I hope you’ll be able to recover the costs (plus some) from the collection agency.
Something similar happened to me once, but the sheriff’s department was involved. Apparently my name matched someone who owed child support. I contacted the sheriff’s department, and indicated that I would be willing to provide DNA if needed. The deputy laughed and said that they would start by using my driver’s license picture in a “line up” to see if the claimant could pick me out. They failed.
I hope you get this straightened out soon. Sorry to hear that it happened at all.
I had my SIN (Canadian version of SSN) linked to two other files with a national collection agency - so basically my credit was tied to this guy in Quebec. Equifax had mine, this guys and a joint credit file linked to my SIN - and about $75,000 in debt that was not mine. It took months to straighten out and was a HUGE pain in the ass. The worst part was that Equifax was totally unwilling to even consider they had made any kind of mistake.
Sigh.
FINALLY I got one person’s contact info and hounded them until they sat down and we figured it all out.
All of that ME ME ME talk to say - I really hope yours is less painful and MUCH faster to resolve.
I was doing that for a while, but I got tired of it. Thanks to some help in GQ, I was able to contact the guy’s mother. All it costs me is a phone call (which is basically free), she can tell her son to do another CoA, and her other son can come get his brother’s mail so that A) I don’t have it; and B) The addressee will.
If anyone feels that writing out “NOT AT THIS ADDRESS” is too much trouble, “RTS” works just as well (Return To Sender). And just put it back in your own mailbox; your carrier will take it away.