For the past 6 months, my wife and I were trying to make sure that out credit info is accurate with all CRA's as we are getting ready to apply for a mortgage loan. I had couple of drags that needed to be cleaned and my wife had a perfect file. Now, just yesterday, my received a letter from Fleet credit fraud dept. about a new account under her name. She has not applied for any credit during the past year. She contacted them and they confirmed that the account is not hers and that it will be closed. As of the date of the letter, 1/2 there was no balance on the account and it seems that there was some incorrect data in the application that made them forward it to theri fraud dept. before activating it. Seeing that, we were suspicious of the possibility of other account that we did not know about. So, we got online credit files from TU, EX and EQ. Experian only showed the Fleet inquiry on 12/12/01. Equifax was clean. TU had an inquiry on 12/13/01 to Sears and another one on 1/2/02 to VoiceStream cell phone. So we contacted both Sears and Voicestream and found out that both applications were denied due to wrong address and/or DoB. We put a fraud alert on the 3 files and contacted the FTC hot line to report the case. We tried filing a police report but couldn't do that since no actual purchases we know of were actually made. Due to the fraud alert. We cannot have online access to any of the credit files. So it seems now that my only option is to request a copy of each credit file by mail each month for some time till I feel that no more inquiries are taking place. After that we may remove the fraud alert and use credit watch and creditexpert to monitor the file. BTW, I got the address that the person used to apply for the cards. It's in the same city we are in. Is there anything else we can do for now. It seems as far as we know, that the person didn't have any luck applying for credit. So hopefully he doesn't use this info again. Is there any of the third part credit monitoring services that may be able to function with the fraud alert in place? Thank you and sorry for the long post, but we really feel baaaaaaaad about what's happening.
Sorry to tell you but there is NOT any Credit monitoring service that you can use w/ a Fraud Alert. I have had a Fraud Alert on my file since 1998 (when my Identity was stolen). If you have any questions please feel free to ask me! I know about ID theft like the back of my hand!
You can access worthknowing.com (TU report) with a fraud alert. Well at least DH could with his fraud alert on. KHM
KHM Did he place the Fraud ALert on there THEN get worthknowing or did was he already subscribed to worthknowing when he placed the alert? I was NEVER able to view any of my files online after the fraud alert! I thought it was crazy b/c if anybody would want to see there files daily it would be a fraud Victim..!!!! Right?
Thanks for the reply Guys.. I called truecredit.com today and it seems that I can use their service to monitor my wife's TU file with a fraud alert. This is what the operater said. However, I think that she had no idea what a fraud alert is.. Anyways, I think that we'll just have to wait and see. We would be getting a file each month till hopefully no inquiries are added any more. So far, what we know is 3 inquiries in about 25 days. Another Question... Considering that I know the address that was used in 2 of the credit application, do you guys think that writing a letter (nameless) and sending it to this address might stop the credit application? or is that a truely bad idea? MartysGirl, I browsed some of your older posts. I will let you know if I have any questions. Thank you
I think if you can contact an officer in the fraud department, they might be a little more interested. We have some law enforcement that read and sometimes post - perhaps they will respond with suggestions. You never know - it might be someone they're already looking for.
I will try to find information about the Police fraud department. This is in Houston. MartysGirl.. In your case, was there any new accounts opened after the fraud alert was put on your credit files? I am hoping that everything that person tries to apply for will be declined because of the alert. Also, was is hard disputing inquiries that are fraud related or did the CRA's just delete them without much hassle. Thanks a lot
If anyone tries to open an account in your name say online, they will not get instant approval. No matter what address they put I believe a letter will get sent to YOUR address. So if YOU try to get instant approval online it won't work. My hubby tried to get credit card when he had his alert on and the CC co. sent a letter to him saying send a copy of your DL and a utility bill in your name. He wasn't a victim of identity theft, the CRA's had an address on file that he lived at a long time ago, we thought it was strange cause he had ordered a report 1 year ago at this address (we've been here 4 or 5 years) and he got that one. But he wasn't getting any when I seriously started focusing on Credit repair. Make sense? Hope I helped! KHM
Thanks for the reply.. Actually this is what I am hoping to happen. My wife doesn't need to apply for credit online. She actually doesn't need to apply at all. We are more concerned about the person who is using her name and SSN to apply. We also hope that deleting the fraudlant inquiries won't be very hard with the CRA's.
IHope your wife got lucky! I never had any CC's opened AFTER the fraud alert! Although in my case the damage was done in less that 6 months. My biggest problem was all of the Business CC's opened in my name that wan't reporting to the CRA's. I had to go through ALL of my inquires and call the each fraud debt. Sometimes that didn't work.. b/c I would only find out about new fraud accounts when they would finally track me down and send me a bill!!!!! It was CRAZY!! Inquiries.. With Equifax...I never got any slack. I had 52 inquiries that I had no clue about. Most of the companies pulled my reports back to back (ex. Jan.1, Jan. 3, Jan. 6 = Discover.) Even with inquiries like this...I still got the same letters concerning removing them and I had to contact the creditors just like everyone else! Which was hell b/c the companies didn't want to bother! Trans Union removed some of them. Experian removed all of them the first time I disputed. Good Luck..
