topic Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR! in General Credit Topics

Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:08:34 GMT

I am not sure why, maybe because I am disputing some information. There was nothing in the letter about the disputes, only that they put a fraud alert on it and what to do if I have been a victim of fraud. I seriously think they are the ones that I need to be protected from!

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:47:11 GMT

They put one on mine also, without asking or me telling them to. This happened in Jan and it can not be removed unless you send them a written, signed letter. Funny thing, I just got the letters you are talking about.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:08:55 GMT

Did you dispute INQ's?

EQ will require a FA to dispute INQ's.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:26:08 GMT

I did not dispute inquiries. I disputed an account that was not mine.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

nosxih — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:31:17 GMT

I got the same letter today. It must be mail day for them. We disputed a verizon account that is on DW CR which her sister opened without her knowledge.
So we disputed as Not Mine. I think they consider it ID theft when you dispute as not mine and put a FA on the account.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:37:05 GMT

They should not be able to do that. It is then up to you to have it removed.

They also still ding you with inquiries even though the creditor is unable to actually check your credit.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:25:57 GMT

If you dispute with the reason as not mine - the CRA's will put a FA on your file. If you want to dispute something on your report and you don't want a FA, dispute as inaccurate or incomplete information.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Mommy2anAngel2007 — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:09:21 GMT

Yep! I have on my Equifax also because I disputed something as "Not Mine" Strange thing is Equifax says there is no "fraud alert" on my CR. But my CR says there is! Who knows! I will have to wait the 30 days for it to be removed per the the Customer service Rep. HUH?? Why am I waiting 30 days for a fraud alert to be lifted if there isn't one on my report! Boy oh Boy

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:15:07 GMT

@Mommy2anAngel2007 wrote:
Yep! I have on my Equifax also because I disputed something as "Not Mine" Strange thing is Equifax says there is no "fraud alert" on my CR. But my CR says there is! Who knows! I will have to wait the 30 days for it to be removed per the the Customer service Rep. HUH?? Why am I waiting 30 days for a fraud alert to be lifted if there isn't one on my report! Boy oh Boy

According to my EQ CR the FA is scheduled to be removed in 2015.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:20:25 GMT

My letter says it will remain on there for 90 days. Can I have it removed if I call them?

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Lel — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:00:18 GMT

This is probably a naive question, but what's wrong with a fraud alert? I have one on Equifax too, of my own doing, that was placed last summer. I had to get a Verizon account taken off that wasn't mine, and a prior attempt to get it deleted without yelling "fraud" was unsuccessful.

So far, I haven't had any real problems with this fraud alert, but there have been some little bumps along the way. When I tried to get a store credit card for an on-the-spot 10% discount on appliances, it couldn't go through (but my wife was able to get it). When I tried to sign on with SW, initially myFICO couldn't pull the EQ file because of the fraud alert, but then it mysteriously resolved itself.

Prior to that, my student loan servicing company lost a CD with sensitive information, and a potential fraud warning was sent to all 3 credit bureaus. Applying for new credit required an extra phone call, but otherwise there were no real problems.

Am I missing something? Now that the Verizon account has finally been removed (after over 4 years of trying), should I cancel the fraud alert?

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:50:01 GMT

I also received this letter as well. My information was lost last year with a State database of iformation that came up missing and they provided me with the service of fraud protection. I just figured that this was part of that. I would love to hear what other people have to say as well.

Tiffany

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:12:30 GMT

If it was a 90 alert I would not mind so much but, mine is until 2015. With those alerts creditors are not supposed to be able to check your CR. I have had 5 inquiries against my CR and they never got to see my reports. Yet I got dinged for them.

You can not just call to have it removed. It has to be a written letter sent to the CRA. At least that is what EQ told me.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:25:55 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
If it was a 90 alert I would not mind so much but, mine is until 2015. With those alerts creditors are not supposed to be able to check your CR. I have had 5 inquiries against my CR and they never got to see my reports. Yet I got dinged for them.

You can not just call to have it removed. It has to be a written letter sent to the CRA. At least that is what EQ told me.

Lucky you. F/As only note that lenders need to verify accounts before opening them. F/As stop many problems. The company Life Lock is a pay service that keeps an F/A active I believe. There is no down side to an F/A that I know of. It just makes it slightly more difficult to get approved. Now a Freeze stops them from seeing your CR.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:11:27 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:
If it was a 90 alert I would not mind so much but, mine is until 2015. With those alerts creditors are not supposed to be able to check your CR. I have had 5 inquiries against my CR and they never got to see my reports. Yet I got dinged for them.

You can not just call to have it removed. It has to be a written letter sent to the CRA. At least that is what EQ told me.

Lucky you. F/As only note that lenders need to verify accounts before opening them. F/As stop many problems. The company Life Lock is a pay service that keeps an F/A active I believe. There is no down side to an F/A that I know of. It just makes it slightly more difficult to get approved. Now a Freeze stops them from seeing your CR.

With a FA there are supposed to be numbers on the file for them to contact you. Since I did not apply the FA there is nothing there. How they got 2015 I have no clue. I suppose it is not that bad. Did not know about the freeze. What are the pros/cons of that?

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Anonymous — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:46:25 GMT

If you place a freeze on your credit file you have to send a written notice to get it temporarily lifted or removed prior to applying for new credit. Not sure what the long term effects are since revolving accounts periodically check your CR to see if they are going to raise or lower interest rates on your accounts.With all the ID theft I thought about having my CR frozen so my file couldn't be accessed without my consent but hadn't because of my revolving accounts.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

treschic — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:03:46 GMT

i could be wrong, but i don't necessarily think the "not mine" is always the reason for the fraud alert, or they are maybe just starting to do this, because i disputed several erronius ca as "not mine" since june 2007, and only recently last month got a fraud alert on my cr, but it wasn't related to my disputes, it was because i opted out via the online link, and for whatever reason, they put a fraud alert on all 3 of my credit reports.i removed it from transunion, and but i haven't gotten around to removing it from eq and ex. but, this was just my experience, and i don't know. whats confusing is that they say that you have to send in a copy of a police report for id theft, and a copy of your drivers license supposidly to be able to get this type of fraud alert, all i did was go to the website, and it said nothing about identity theft or fraud alert. hope this helps

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Lel — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:19:34 GMT

@angiepharm wrote:
i could be wrong, but i don't necessarily think the "not mine" is always the reason for the fraud alert, or they are maybe just starting to do this, because i disputed several erronius ca as "not mine" since june 2007, and only recently last month got a fraud alert on my cr, but it wasn't related to my disputes, it was because i opted out via the online link, and for whatever reason, they put a fraud alert on all 3 of my credit reports.i removed it from transunion, and but i haven't gotten around to removing it from eq and ex. but, this was just my experience, and i don't know. whats confusing is that they say that you have to send in a copy of a police report for id theft, and a copy of your drivers license supposidly to be able to get this type of fraud alert, all i did was go to the website, and it said nothing about identity theft or fraud alert. hope this helps

You're right, disputing ownership does not automatically lead to a fraud alert. In my case, my frustration that EQ wasn't deleting an incorrect CR entry led me to call the account "fraudulent" in my dispute letter. Finally, this account was deleted. But it took nearly 5 years to get it off - I first discovered it in 2002, disputed it then, was told it was deleted, but it persisted until 2007 until I finally cried wolf (I mean fraud).

I do have an extended fraud alert on EQ. Since I cried fraud, notification were sent to the other CRAs. EX only placed a temporary fraud alert that has since expired. I don't know what TU did, but I suspect that they have an extended fraud alert on file because when I ordered a free credit report from them a couple months back, I had to call in with additional verification of ID.

Thus far, the fraud alert has not caused any real problems for me. I have to go through an extra ID verification step as I go through a mortgage refi right now, but it's far from an inconvenience. In some ways, I like the fact that my credit is being more closely watched right now.

By the way, getting this erroneous charge-off Verizon deleted from my file didn't really impact my credit score that much. When I bought my house in 2006, my scores were in the high 700s, and they are unchanged since then.

Re: Letter from Equifax today, they put a fraud alert on my CR!

Jesedmotherof5 — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:20:55 GMT

I got one put on my for Verizone too when i called they said companys would just need to verify with me by phone... no other adverse problems