What do I do next?

[Anonymous]

I subscribe to FICO Quarterly Monitoring, and it sends me those weekly 'everythings OK' emails as it checks my credit info for changes. Anyway, today I get an alert, new information! I go to the site, and there is a new SSN, Address, Name, and Phone Number for me. Aauuugh! None of the new info is mine.

So, I head over to annualcreditreport.com and pull my three credit reports, and none of them show this mystery info. Hmmm.

I Google search, and find out there is someone with the same name as me who does live at this address and phone number, and I assume that is also his partial SSN I'm now looking at that got added as well.

So, if none of the 3 credit bureaus show this info, but it's popped into myFICO's credit alert for me, where did it come from? And who do I follow up with to find out what's up/what to do next?

Should I call myFICO customer service?

Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

Well, that was weird. I replied to you, but it was lost because your message was moved in the meantime. What I had to say had to do with my own experience today with Quarterly Monitoring. I've been getting my own "everything is fine" messages for a long time, but then tonight I got an Alert about new identity information too. The message linked me to my alerts page, where I was told I had a new address, listing a specific one here in my area, but when I pulled my credit reports there was no sign of this new address in either report.

I can't figure out where the address came from or why Quarterly Monitoring has linked me to it. If you find out anything, please post. I do wonder if something systematic was done to match names and addresses in some way? At least you know you had a name in common. I find it hard to believe I do since my first name is Truly, an old family name. I know a family here did name their daughter Truly about 4 years ago, but they don't have my last name. There is no one listed in the phone book here with my last name, which is also uncommon, possibly unique when paired with my last name.

My situation may be more of a mystery than yours, but the answer to how yours got linked may give me a clue. We'll see if you can get an answer. I wonder if I can possibly get one....

My thread is under the products heading, where you started.

trulyb

TU 783 EQ 794 12/17/2009

 

[Lel]

All the info on the credit reports that are obtained from this site is derived from data held at the credit bureaus.  So if the information obtained directly from annualcreditreport.com does not have this information, then myFICO.com must be getting sent the data for the wrong "mikesFICO".

Did you check the rest of the credit report from here to see if your account information is accurate?  If the wrong identifying information is sent, then presumably the wrong account information would be sent, too.

I think a call to customer service would be advisable. Good luck.

ETA: I didn't see trulyb's post when I entered my response.  Clearly something's amiss with the information being reported through this site.  It's curious that both of you have quarterly monitoring; I wonder if this is unique to this product.  I'll alert an administrator, but in the meantime you both probably should call customer service.

Message Edited by Lel on 12-17-2009 10:40 PM

[Anonymous]

I just spoke with Customer Service, and the representative was very helpful. She told me that there has been some sort of bug with Quarterly Monitoring in the last day or so, and some Alerts have gone out that are duplicates or false alarms or otherwise have some problems. They are working on the issues. Given that there is nothing in my credit reports that suggests a problem, she assured me that the alert must have simply been a result of this bug. If there had been a SSN issue, further action would be required - so I think Mike will need to look further at his problems with Customer Service.

For me, she did refund the cost of my TU credit report by just canceling the request, given that I otherwise had no need for the report. She couldn't do that with the EQ report, but I was pleased that she did refund at least the cost of one report that I was out of pocket because of this alert. I'm pleased that she thought of this on her own before I had to ask for it. Good customer relations move on her part. All in all, I thought it was a good, honest response to a problem, and I'm satisfied with it.

trulyb

783 TU 794 EQ    12/17/2009

[Jazzzy]

I got an alert from TU today for the very first time. I've belonged for quite awhile. The information was all OK. It showed new accounts, etc. I've never been alerted before. Some of these new accounts first reported a couple of months ago.

Maybe whatever happened finally woke TU quarterly monitoring from its sleep.

[Lel]

Apparently, there's been some revamping of the quarterly monitoring product that has resulted in old information being sent out as new alerts.  People are trying to iron things out.  Many others have reported similarly unusual behavior.

mikesFICO, your problem seems to be different from others, in that you are being alerted about information that is not yours.  Have you had a chance to speak to customer service about this?

[Jazzzy]

---

@Lel wrote:

Apparently, there's been some revamping of the quarterly monitoring product that has resulted in old information being sent out as new alerts.  People are trying to iron things out.  Many others have reported similarly unusual behavior.

mikesFICO, your problem seems to be different from others, in that you are being alerted about information that is not yours.  Have you had a chance to speak to customer service about this?

---

It's kind of nice to get alerted...even with the old information. I have never had an alert from quarterly monitoring before. I had decided I was paying a lot of money just to get TU scores 4x per year. Score Watch was fairly good at alerting, so I didn't worry about the TU alerts that weren't coming.

[Anonymous]

Mike is not the only one who got "new" information. While I've been told not to worry about it, the address that I was alerted to as "new" for me is completely unfamiliar to me. The customer service rep said myFico gets information from about 400 sources, so there is no telling where this address popped up from, but she assured me that I need do nothing further if it was not in either credit report. But it does still sound like someone reported the address in some connection with me, which is completely puzzling. Again, it's not a simple name confusion. I've done nationwide white page searches, and I am the only person I can turn up with my peculiar combination of first and last names. There is not even anyone in my area with my last name. So I have no explanation for my alert at all.

It would be comforting if it was a duplicate alert of old information. Who would worry about that? All I can hope for is an utter mistake, no basis for it at all?

Mike's alert seems to have a likely explanation: he found someone with his same name at the "new" address with a different SSN. It would be interesting to hear what he was told by customer service, if it was anything other than the blanket "problems with Quarterly Monitoring" explanation. It sounds like there was more than one kind of problem, some more substantial than others.

trulyb

TU 783 EQ 794  12/17/2009