How do I fix my credit, if I am no longer me??

NordicSaab wrote: You may also want to contact a company like Lifelock. I believe you can get a subscription for under $30/month and they will at least be able to monitor activity to get a better understanding of the problem.

Actually, freezing your credit is a much better alternative than subscribing to a service that tells you when the horse bolted the barn.

At this point in time it's not going to help anyway, if Paul can't establish his identity with the credit bureaus to get access to his credit reports, he won't be able to get access to any monitoring service worth their salt either.

TranUnnion's Fraud number hung up on me when I couldn't enter my current mailing zip code.

Who the berkeley comes up with this stuff?

Try GetHuman to see if they have better phone numbers that actually allow you to talk to someone: http://gethuman.com/

SVreX wrote:

spitfirebill wrote: How does anybody ever prove who they are? Send them your birth certificate, SS card and drivers license?

Can't do that if there is no address to send it to. All this stuff is now online, and people don't think. Driver's license could have been altered if someone has my SS#. Looks like the only important piece of info they needed to change was my current address. Once that is changed, I am effectively locked out, because I don't know what address to tell them I live at. Then they can get credit in my name at the "new" address, and I never know.

My naïve self has a hard time understanding how it is so easy for someone else to change your address, but you can't.

In reply to BoxheadTim:

Yep.

Those are the numbers I called.

Grrr.

mtn wrote: Ok, you're in over your head. Rather than try to explain this over the internet, go in to your bank and ask them to speak with their fraud expert. Because my advice will basically boil down to "you can't do this on your own, you need to go in and have the bank do it for you" (I work at a bank in Risk, and work closely with the fraud dude)

That's helpful.

I will talk with my bank.

Just out of curiosity, are you saying I am in over my head because this is a complicated scenario that requires the help of a pro, or because I am just sounding like I am not "getting it"?

It's not Coventry, it's Covington.

My bad.

Not sure if this is current, but try these:

Trans Union: http://consumerist.com/2007/04/16/reach-transunion-executive-customer-service/

Equifax: http://consumerist.com/2007/04/06/reach-equifax-executive-customer-service/

and this may also help:

https://www.equifax.com/corp/investorcenter/annualReport2005/assets/pdfs/EFX_AR05_board.pdf

Experian: http://consumerist.com/2007/10/25/reach-experian-executive-customer-service/

and

http://www.experian.com/corporate/corporate-contacts.html

and

https://www.experianplc.com/about-us/board-and-senior-management/

Good luck; it appears some of the procedures for getting this untangled were written by Joseph Heller.

I ran into dead ends at Experian and TransUnion.

Moving forward with Equifax- I'm on hold with the fraud department right now.

This should be interesting- I found the "correct" new address- 80 Logan's Run Covington GA 30016. Name online for that address is a woman named R. Robinson, as well as a man named Anthony Prison Robinson. SERIOUSLY? The dude's middle name is "Prison"? Whodathunkit?

You guys are better at finding crap online than me. Anyone want to start an ePosse??

spitfirebill wrote: My naïve self has a hard time understanding how it is so easy for someone else to change your address, but you can't.

Me too.

I guess when they started this mess, they had correct info to verify that they were me. Then, they changed the info (as me).

Now, I don't have current info.

I do, however, have more in-depth info. Once I can get with a fraud person, I am confident I can resolve it.

The problem right now is getting through.

SVreX wrote:

mtn wrote: Ok, you're in over your head. Rather than try to explain this over the internet, go in to your bank and ask them to speak with their fraud expert. Because my advice will basically boil down to "you can't do this on your own, you need to go in and have the bank do it for you" (I work at a bank in Risk, and work closely with the fraud dude)

That's helpful. I will talk with my bank. Just out of curiosity, are you saying I am in over my head because this is a complicated scenario that requires the help of a pro, or because I am just sounding like I am not "getting it"?

Obviously I can't speak for mtn, but it sounds like the former. This is way too serious of an issue to be debating on a forum of people mostly not experienced in your situation, IMO. If every route you've tried hasn't been able to work, you need to go the pros. Identity theft is no joke and the sooner you can get it stopped the better.

As others have said, there are people at your bank paid to help you figure this stuff out. It's not good for them if too bad of stuff happens to your account.

Best of luck.

Definitely the former (former financial services guy here also). The fraud guys are paid well to do exactly this kind of stuff, and have relationships with the credit reporting bureaus. Letting them do their thing is sounding like the best option here.

In reply to classicJackets:

Yeah, I understand the severity, and most certainly would not trust the bozos on THIS site to fix it!

I was just looking for a referral to a person to contact, and a way to contact them which was not online.

BoxheadTim wrote: Try GetHuman to see if they have better phone numbers that actually allow you to talk to someone: http://gethuman.com/

Looks like this gave me a staring point. Thanks. Tim!

It was worthless for reaching Experian and TransUnion, but got me through to Equifax, and I made some progress with them.

Added a fraud alert, cancelled the false address, got the reports mailed to me, and started an investigation.

I'll be following up with my bank too. Actually didn't know they did stuff like this (outside of their in-house accounts).

Thanks, guys!

SVreX wrote:

mtn wrote: Ok, you're in over your head. Rather than try to explain this over the internet, go in to your bank and ask them to speak with their fraud expert. Because my advice will basically boil down to "you can't do this on your own, you need to go in and have the bank do it for you" (I work at a bank in Risk, and work closely with the fraud dude)

That's helpful. I will talk with my bank. Just out of curiosity, are you saying I am in over my head because this is a complicated scenario that requires the help of a pro, or because I am just sounding like I am not "getting it"?

It requires the help of a pro.

Put it this way: I worked in collections at a top 100 bank, although not customer facing, and heard a lot of advice from people. I now work in Risk, and deal with fraud on a monthly basis, and work closely with the pro. If I were in the same situation, I would probably be able to handle it myself... But I wouldn't--if only for the time involved.

Thanks mtn!

SVreX wrote: I'll be following up with my bank too. Actually didn't know they did stuff like this (outside of their in-house accounts). Thanks, guys!

The fraudsters have your information, it wouldn't be impossible for them to get a new debit card mailed to them at "your" new address with a new pin. Then it is down on the bank for an insufficient client authentication process, and they can be on the line for the $7,302,311 that they just drained from SvRex's account.

(Wow Paul, when did you become a multi-millionaire??)

Let me get this straight. YOU have a credit card in your hand that works. Your Doppelganger also has an identical card and is racking up bills in your name.

You call the Card company to declare that shenanigans are afoot and they just ignore you?

I would expect that CC companies would have the card killed in seconds. Hell, they have cancelled mine just because I was charging gas money 1000 miles apart in less than 24 hours.

In reply to NOHOME:

It sounds like it's much worse than that. What SVreX is describing is full blown identity theft in which an unknown number of NEW accounts have been opened, probably at institutions he doesn't do any actual business with.

Based on what I've seen happen to co-workers, it seems popular for these types of thieves to go on a shopping sprees and go home with lots of merchandise on store credit.

I used to live in Covington - IIRC, that's a fairly new subdivision.

SVreX wrote: I will talk with my bank.

also your credit card company, like the Nordic said. Good luck, its a nasty birds nest to untangle...

fasted58 wrote: If not LifeLock then who?

My bank set me up through http://www.enhanceditp.com/ Never had to use them for any issue resolution but I get an email alert anytime anything changes in my credit reports or scores. Worth the $15 a month to have my finger on the pulse of it all.

In reply to mtn:

I don't mind at all if they take a few million out of my account.

...as long as they put it back.

I cannot help, but I recommend freezing your credit when you're through. Ours are, and we have been free of trouble. I recognize that's a little like proving that a deer whistle works, but it's easy and painless to do.

JThw8 wrote: ... Worth the $15 a month to have my finger on the pulse of it all.

And THAT is the lesson in all of this.

I had become a bit complacent and not checked my credit report for about 3 years. Now problems, no worries.

By not paying attention regularly, I may have given them a window of opportunity which enabled them to build a bit more issues into my profile without me knowing.

I know the recommendations are to do a credit report on yourself annually, but I think it would be a better idea to stagger the 3 reporting agencies and do each one once a year, staggered 4 months apart from each other.

If I had done that, I would have easily seen the issue with minimal damage. I will be doing it in the future, and recommending others do the same.