Hi all, I just got a call from Chase this morning, claiming my wife opened up a credit card account with them last august, and has been racking up a balance ever since. After a few questions, it seems that the info they have on file for her is completely wrong, including address and birthdate. At this point, the Chase Rep. said they probably have the wrong person appologized for calling.. The thing is, my wife has a pretty unique name, so I doubt it could be a case of someone with the same name. She doesn't have a Social Security Number, but is a AU on all my accounts, which have a perfect history. Do I have any cause for concern here? Is there a way to get her credit report without an SSN?
Hmmm. Sounds like Chase was just trying to track down someone to pay for the debt. What they do is run something called a 'skip trace' that tries to make an association to someone when a debtor cannot be found thru normal means. I had that happen to me. A flake with the same name incurred a number of debts, and they came after me, until I proved they had the wrong person. If your wife does not have an SS number (isn't that required anymore to claim her on your taxes?), there will be no credit report on her. Since you were able to prove to Chase's satisfaction that they had the wrong person, you can probably let this slide at this time. What I was told that if it really became a problem, that I would need to go to court and get an order from them certifying that I was not the party involved in these matters, and then I could forward that to any future collectors as proof. I have chosen not to do that. To date, I've had 3 such problems and I've been able to deal with them without too much expense out of pocket (other than all of the CRRRs). It could be fraud, but since your wife doesn't have an SS number, there's no real way to associate it to her.
Addressing the specific question above and nothing else ... dependents of work-visa holders are not issued SSNs any more. Only the primary work-visa holder is issued an SSN. For tax purposes, IRS issues "TIN"s -- taxpayer identification numbers -- to such dependents.
Re: Re: need advice on identity theft Exactly. But none of my banks or credit cards know her TIN (which has the same 9 digit format as an SSN), so I doubt this was used
