TWO CREDIT FILES MERGED INTO ONE - HELP

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first time posting on this forum. I just wanted to share my story as briefly as I can with you all. And possibly get feedback as to how I can fix this problem. So here goes, back in 2002 I believe it was. My sister-in-law went car shopping. She needed a car and was trying to find a place that would approve her for an auto loan. In the span of a month's time. She must have gone to at least 10 different car lots and at least had her credit run to see if she would qualify for a loan. The problem with that was, at that time we both shared the same exact first, middle and last name, as well as the same address. Also we grew up in the same town, went to the same schools, got our Social Security cards issued from same office within months of each other. Long story short, basically our identifying information was practically identical. Except that she is 1 yr. older than me.

Her middle name is different than mine. Our SS #'s are not identical they're just similar.W hat ended up happening was somehow, one of those car salesmen that ran her credit report. Must have gotten my report and her report up on the screen. And thinking that it was one person, hastily, somehow. blended us together. And you would not believe what a pain in the neck it has been. And how I found out this happened was, a few years after she had bought her car, I went to go buy a car and get a loan. And the salesman took my information, ran my report and came back and said "We can't approve you for a car loan because you already have a car and a loan showing on your credit report. And you don't have the income to support two loans." OMG

Of course, I told him that is not me. you got the wrong person. I do not own a new car. If I had a new car, why would I be in here looking for a used car. So our credit files have been intermingling with each others for the past 15 years! I thought that we had finally separated ourselves from each other credit wise a few years back it seemed. But when i was signing up, for an account here at MyFico. at the end of the sign-up process. they do an identity verification and out of the 4 questions they asked me, only one pertained to me. The other 3 were about her. So I still have that part of the sign up to get through. Anybody have any suggestions, on how to fix this mess once and for all?  I gave up trying to fix this years ago, but I have been working on trying to get my credit scores higher over this past year. But I feel it will never really be accurate as long as the credit bureaus think that we are just one person instead of two. 

Thanks for any help you can offer in advance

[Anonymous]

Omg same thing happened to my twin sister and I omg I thought we were the only one affected by this. Did u ever find a solution? I need help, as you already know it's a messssss...
(Mod Cut-Im sorry its against TOS to put direct contact info in the public forum, this is for your protection. You certainly are free to start your own thread on this if you need help with anything.)

[Anonymous]

I am curious -- when your sister pulls her own credit file, does she experience the same problem?  In other words, did the merging only happen to you, or did it happen to her as well?

I am slightly puzzled by how your childhood played out.  Do I understand that your mother and father gave both children (only a year apart) the exact same first and middle name?  What happened when they said, "Alex, come in from outside"?  Did you both always respond to all questions?

I am not trying to be funny.... just trying to make sure I am grasping the full implications of you and your sister having exactly the same first and middle name.  Never heard of that before. 

Have your sister and yourself lived at different addresses for the last several years?  (Including different zip codes?)

My guess is that the steps are to do the following:

(1)  Get full printed paper copies of your reports from each bureau via AnnualCreditReport.com.  If they mail them to you that may bypass some of the headache with the identity proofing questions.  Get help from others here on this site on how to do this step.

(2)  Work with your sister on identifying which are her accounts on the report and which are yours.

(3)  Contact the credit bureaus and patiently walk them through the problem.  Be prepared for the possibility that you'll need to send in annotated reports, along with copies of birth certificates and driver licenses and passports and utility statements and copies of your SSN card -- a set for you and a set for her.  Be prepared for the possibility it it may take a while.  You may be the only brother and sister with the same identically spelled first, middle, and last name raised in the same house in the history of the US, thus it could take a while to detangle.

Other folks here may be able to give you better advice.  Wish you the best of luck.

PS.  One thing to consider at some point -- after it gets resolved -- is a legal name change.  Even if you don't do that, changing the spelling of your names with all your creditors and making sure that the old common address has been deleted from your reports might help prevent a similar merge in the future.  Some creditors pull your report without your SSN.

[Anonymous]

OP lived in the same house as a woman with the same first name. This woman married her brother (or sister) and took his last name.

[Anonymous]

Merged files are tricky in the best of circumstances. Your situation will likely be hard, especially so if your SIL is uncooperative.

My suggestion is that you each pull a copy of your CR from each bureau, sit down together, and agree upon what each of you is responsible for and what personally identifiying information is valid for each of you. Call each bureau independently and escalate the call until you get someone that understands what a merged file is and what records maintenance is. Each of you should go over the report in minute detail with this CSR until you've cleared up any confusion. Mine was harder because I couldn't even pull my CR; I didn't know the person I got merged with so couldn't pass the security screen. You guys should be able to get reports and resolve this with a bit of patience. The critical element to success here is having both of you commit to dealing with it until it is resolved. If each of you don't call in and be resolute, you won't get someone that can actually solve the problem. In that case, this will be a perpetual problem.

You'll almost certainly be merged again in the future due to the similarity in name, address history, and SSN. When it happens, you'll need to take exactly the same approach. Depending on how long ago you shared an address, one or both of you may be able to remove it from your report. That may help a little, but the SSN and name similarity will still be a problem. My file was merged based on a one digit SSN variance and sharing a first name and first two letters of a last name.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

OP lived in the same house as a woman with the same first name. This woman married her brother (or sister) and took his last name.

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Sorry that I didn't read this carefully enough and missed this.  Thanks.

[mitchblue]

My Mom had stuff on her CR had stuff from my sister at two different times. My sister's name is Mary, my Mom Marianne and they had different middle names (and initials) and lived in different cities at the time. It made no sense and took forever to clean it up. At one time when my Sister was getting a mortgage loan, the loan officer printed up my Mom's report.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

OP lived in the same house as a woman with the same first name. This woman married her brother (or sister) and took his last name.

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Sorry that I didn't read this carefully enough and missed this.  Thanks.

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No worries; I do that all the time. I didn't just respond with sister-in-law becuase I'd miss it if I already had it in my mind that she was her sister.