My father and I have the same name. 2 years ago I began using annualcreditreport.com to check my report each year.
The first year, experion had a number of his unpaid medical bills on my report. I disputed, had to make a bunch of phone calls and finally got it removed.
Last year, either experion or transunion had some other random bills of his on my report. Once again, I had to go through a hassle to get them removed.
A few minutes ago, im pulling my report from this year and the first question Equifax asks is “Our records indicate you have a mortgage on file, which of these banks is it with” I selected none of the above because I do not have a mortgage. So then they say “for security reasons we cannot deliver your report electronically”. So Now I have to photocopy a few types of proof of ID and mail it it to get the report and be a nervous wreck over what mortgage could possibly be on my report.
I have ONE credit card. Other than that, I haven’t even had a car loan in over 12 years. Why do the agencies keep putting my fathers crap on my report?? Its a different DOB and SSN and address. How will I EVER get a mortgage if I choose to apply in the future if every year this keeps happening?
At the same time it irritates me to have to pay a monitoring service to do what it seems the agencies should be doing. Any advice?
I don’t think a monitoring service could do the job as well as you do it yourself, IMHO.
On your credit report, do the dad-related items show his DOB or SSN? If they don’t, then most likely that stuff is gonna keep hitting you.
You might consider putting a notice on your credit report that your father has the same name, and all creditors need to verify DOB and SSN on all charges when determining your score.
You also might be interested in the thread about naming male children after the father/grandfather!
~VOW
Interesting. I would have thought they already check DOB and SSN. I have a very common name. Not like "John Smith’ common, but the telephone book lists 9 entries here in my town. Whats keeping those from being on my report if all they do is go by a name?
Do you have the same middle name or initial? It might help to always spell your middle name in full when applying for credit, and ask existing creditors to update your records with your full middle name?
Yes. We share the same full name. I always include my middle when space allows. But yeah, I guess shared address from years ago is the link. I would still think SSN / DOB would serve to differentiate us on credit reports since one or the other is always used in medical/credit situations.
I’m gonna try VOW’s suggestion and have a notice placed on my credit report, see if that helps.
As a side note, when applying for an auto loan or mortgage, if this happens again and it causes me to have a low score, will the loan officer recalculate if I pull a report and show them the erroneous items? Or do they just look at the score?
My brother-in-law and his wife named their first son after Dad. The two have different middle names.
My brother-in-law frequently receives nasty grams from people mistaking him for his son. Son has bad credit, poor job history, and has been hospitalized and incarcerated many times over the years. He has not lived at home with his parents in a long, long time.
People really don’t CARE what your story is. They’ve got a name, they’ve got bad stuff, and they want to match the two up.
If you’ve lived a happy, productive, successful life and you’ve got the same name as a deadbeat, you are probably going to spend a lot of time and effort dissociating yourself from the bad news with the same name.
~VOW
I feel your pain, I was born on my fathers birth day and was named after him. If I pull my credit report I typically find three to four items on it that are his. Heck according to my report I bought a house 3 years before I was born. I find that the people sending this information to the credit reporting agencies do not care if it goes to the wrong person and will continue to put it on your file until they get their money. A credit monitoring service won’t do much good if the asshats keep putting incorrect information on your report. In my case I pull my reports and contest anything that is not mine a month or so prior to making any large purchases. Personally I do not worry about my fathers information going onto my report (he has great credit). Only time it is an issue is if it shows me as overextended.
When I purchased my home I made it a point to clean up my credit report before going to a mortgage company. Sent letters to all three reporting agencies asking them to verify the SS# and “year of birth”. I explained the problem to the agent and she said it is not unusual for juniors and seniors to get mingled like that so they work around it.
So can it affect your ability to get a home loan, yep it sure can but if the mortgage company will not work with you then its time to find another agent.
It’s probably not the companies sending data to the agencies. The reporting agencies get a ton of data. Part of what they do is to collate accounts by looking at names, addresses, phone numbers, and so on, to build credit reports. This is done automatically by their system. I never worked on that end, but the goal is to link all of a person’s or company’s credit information together, and to un-merge accounts that don’t belong together. I’d say the problem lies with the reporting agencies’ systems, rather than uncaring employees at Sears or BofA.
My job is to process and send business credit information to Experian. (Note: Not consumer data.) I can assure you that I do care about the quality of the data. It’s amazing how crappy some of it is. See, businesses use any number of ways to keep track of their customers. Most of what we get is simply entered into Excel. Some companies use QuickBooks (which is a PITA to process), some use accounting systems developed in-house, and others use other off-the-shelf programs. We make every effort to ensure the data is clean and accurate, short of googling every record to verify what the contributor is sending is correct. If required information is missing or ambiguous, the record is deleted. If the numbers don’t crossfoot, the record is deleted. When the data gets to Experian it is run through a validation program. If certain things don’t conform to standards, the record is deleted. The non-profit company I work for is one part of a century-plus-old association. I don’t know how other offices process the data for their regions, but I can assure you that the business credit data I work on is as clean and as accurate as I can get it. I’m a bit compulsive that way.