I pulled my boyfriend's and my credit report with all 3 CRA. Only with Transunion, I have AT LEAST 20 collection accounts on mine that belong to my mother, and upon realizing this, I asked her to pull her report. She has the same collections on her report, and she has information to my auto loan, my American Express card, and our Home Depot card. The frustrating thing about all of this is Transunion tacked my mother's accounts onto my report simply because my mother and I have the same name, and my information onto hers for the same reason! And my mother has a few accounts on her report that belong to neither me or her, and because of the unrecognized address, we believe it's another Janie (last name) who lives in the same city as we. I have contacted the CA's and OC and they all confirm that the last four digits of the SSN they have on file are my mother's and not my own. They said all they do is report the information to Transunion; it was Transunion who applited it on my account. Transunion did the SAME thing to my boyfriend. He has numerous collections on his account with an address from Dallas, TX. He has never lived in Dallas or anywhere near Dallas. He contacted the CA's and OC and they all confirmed that the SSN they have on file does not match his SSN. It is simply a guy with the same name as his from a city 8 hours away from us.
Transunion has irresponsibly synced other people's debt onto our report, and it has dropped both of our scores over 100 points. I understand writing DV letters and sending them certified, but what's to keep them from doing this again in the future if these people, who simply share a name with us, default on another utility bill or have another item sent to collections? How do I know my information isn't sitting on someone, other than my mother's report? How do we know the same for my boyfriend? Isn't this a violation of our privacy? What kind of recourse can we take?
HELP!!! I am so angry and so annoyed. Do I have to write a DV letter for each account that isn't ours, or can I list all of the acocunts on one letter?
Thanks,
Janie
edited to remove last name
No, we've never cosigned for anything. The only person I have joint accounts with is my boyfriend. There was an incident when I was in high school and she used MY SSN to open a utility bill, so I called every account to verify whose SSN they had on file, and they were all hers. At first I assumed it was the creditor who had put her information on my credit report, so I called them to explain their error, but they said they just report the information to the credit bureaus. It was the credit bureau who attached her information to my report. It was the same situation with my boyfriend. I'm also very annoyed that she has access to my credit card and loan information, and I have access to hers. Someone else with my name could very well have access to my information on their report right now. And it makes me wonder if my boyfriend can see the other guy's information tacked onto his report, if the other guy can also see ours. I'm completely willing to write the DV letters (I'm still in the process of writing them out). It's just there is over 50 of accounts/collections that do not belong to us. I don't know if I can simply list them all on the same letter, if each dispute has to have it's own letter, etc.
Isn't it illegal for the credit reporting bureaus to simply use the same name as a way to determine who's debt is who's? Aren't they supposed to very SSN? *bangs head into desk* This all just gives me such a huge headache.
But thank you SO MUCH for replying. I have no real idea as to what to do.
Janie