Experian Fraud used in attempt to open Lowe's credit card

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone,

I'd love to get the forums thoughts on this.

Earlier this month it appears someone created a new gmail email address and used it along with some of my personal information to create an account for Experian Creditworks.  I was able to contact Experian and found out the email address the person used along with the username to Experian.  They reset the password and I logged in to notice my birthday was listed incorrectly under personal information.  It appears Experian let someone create the account with an inaccurate birthday, but they must have been able to answer enough security questions to allow for the account to be created.  This seems, horrible.  The supervisor who I talked to could not offer any other information and told me to contact local law enforcement.  He said they could allow for an account to be created and a credit report accessed even with an incorrect birthday due to "typos".  

Also note the person who did this also then tried to sign up for a Lowe's credit card a few days later but was denied when they were not able to successfully confirm my identity.  

I've placed a security freeze on my report at all three credit bureaus.  I'm going to call Experian on Monday to dispute the hard credit pull.  Any other thoughts here?  I'm sure this happens quite frequently, but Experian allowing an act of fraud to be committed and not seeming at all concerned about their systems is really bugging me.  The supervisor indicated there was no one else I could talk to there about the matter.  My assumption is the credit score service is an entire different entity then the bureau so not sure what my options are.  

Ryan

[elim]

Welcome to the forums, sorry you have to go through this...

Closely monitor (and freeze) all 3 reports. If someone has your info, it means it's out there and may be shared with others trying to do the same.

Lowes (Synch bank) would have pulled your TU report so you'll have to dispute the HP there. I would file a local police report so you can get all of this done for free. It's also a great time to freeze LexisNexis (ARS and IDA/Sagestream as well) after you have a copy of the police report in hand.

GL

[Anonymous]

Hi Elim,

I've already placed the freeze on all 3 reports.  So far the only hard pull which showed up was @ Experian, but I'll keep watching. 

I'll contact local law enforcement to get more details on how to file a report.

Ryan

[Anonymous]

Any idea if I can still report the fraud with the FTC even though the request for credit was denied?  I went to www.identitytheft.gov to file but it appears the only option is if the account was successfully opened, which in my case it wasn't.

[RobertEG]

FCRA 605B applies to the block of "any information in the file of the consumer,"

If the CRA receives a police report along with proof of identity and a copy of a standard FTC fraud affidavit, a credit inquiry that resulted from fraud would be blocked.

Blocking of the information does not involve any finding or determination as to whether the information is accurate, or the involvement of any party other than the consumer and the CRA.  It relies only on the assertion of the consumer, backed up by the police report and fraud affidavit.

[Anonymous]

Walking through the wizard (https://www.identitytheft.gov/Assistant) the only options related to credit cards are 'to open a fradulent credit card account' or 'to makes changes to an existing credit card account'.

Technically, neither happened since the credit card application was denied.  If I select 'to open a fradulent credit card account' the next option is "What company or bank issued the credit card?",etc which do not apply since no card was issued.  

I'll look again to see if I'm missing something in the wizard.