Apparently there is someone who has a name very similar to JOCOeveryman living on the west coast who doesn't pay his bills.
While JOCOeveryman was assured that because the socials are different it couldn't be put on my credit report. This was SO wrong.
Two credit reporting companies give JOCOeveryman an honorable score in the high 700's while Experian has seen fit to combine my information and this other JOCOeveryman's and bomb my score on that one to the low 500's. Yikes!
This other mister everyman doesn't share my interest in paying his bills. He has had several cars repo'd, joined the BMG Music Club without paying, taken out a number of credit cards without paying and apparently likes Direct TV but doesn't like to pay for it among lots and lots of other things. Bummer.
I have been tracking down this little problem for a couple days and have finally ended up on hold with Experian for the last hour.........they are experiencing high call volume......no shit sherlock. I have what the credit people call a "mixed file". I call it people effing up my credit and wasting my time.
Needless to say THIS JOCOeveryman is a little pissed off today.
Anyway......as a public service to all you readers out there. You can actually go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ and get a real, actual free copy of your report. They will try to sell you an option to get your credit score but I'm told you don't need that........to see if you are as screwed as I am right now. You can only get it once a year. I'm highly recommending if you haven't checked it or had it checked via buying something major like a car that you do it.
Luckily, it isn't keeping me from doing anything critical like buying a home or a car.......or trying to get a new job.........or some insurance.............all things that can be affected by your credit score. I'm being a diligent, pissed off JOCOeveryman and taking care of it now..........finally I found a very helpful person at Experian who helped fix it. Amazing when you finally get to the right person.
Geeeeesh! I need a drink.
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2 comments:
So are you certain this deadbeat has a diff social security number and that your id has not been stolen? It is incredible to think that two people who simply share the same name get lumped together in a credit report.
If the latter is the case, as you have been told, then my next question would be how could this happen? Is this a policy and practices problem that the credit agency has that affects thousands of people or was it an isolated case? Just because you got things fixed this time doesn't mean it will not happen again or as you said happen to anybody.
Sounds like a good investigative reporter might have a good time with this story.
well, I did get it cleared up and they say it does happen. They gave various reasons how it could happen....some of it is their practices or lack there of....
They said they put something on my account that won't allow his stuff on my account again.
I'm sure it does happen to other people.
I've often thought that there could be some legislative work done to better protect consumers and make the credit reporting companies more liable for mistakes that are theirs.....such as this.
I will say once I called they fixed it really quickly.
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