i found this image of a texas mailbox on boing boing. the reason i was looking for mailbox images, is that our mailbox was broken into a few days ago. someone stole an envelope that had some of those access checks that the credit card companies send you in an effort to entice you to use the account for balance transfers, purchases, or anywhere you’d use a regular check. for a fee of course.
fortunately, our credit card company saw it as fraud, called us, and put a stop to it. i called our other credit card companies and turned off the access check mailings on all of our other accounts. i’d advise that anyone who has a credit card do the same. i’m inclined to use this as an excuse to turn off the statement mailings as well. but i sure like them as a reminder that the bill is coming due.
update:
i got an email from my credit card company this morning. apparently the asshole who stole my hubby’s access checks also stole mine and tried to use them. for what it’s worth, i put a fraud alert on my credit bureau, and i’ve found that it’s a lot easier to do that with equifax than it is to do with transunion…
Sorry i’ve been so self-absorbed lately.
Thanks for the heads up. So far, actually communicating with a real person at any of the three (equifax, experion, transunion) has been impossible for me.
As far as i can tell, the only way to do it is to pay for a credit check (even though i’ve had two banks do one now), and then they will communicate through email only, and only about specific complaints about the history.
They have incorrectly created an entirely new account under my old name, making it impossible for me to do anything based on my prior credit unless i use my old name. And as the umpteenth bank finance manager has pointed out, it’s not right, or at least normal. They are supposed to operate under the social security number only.
The name shouldn’t matter. But for some reason, with me only, it does. i can now have a score of 0, or a score of 715 and out myself. Much to my pessimistic surprise, i usually don’t get read at these places, so when it happens through a credit check, it makes for tiresome awkward moments where i have to explain the situation.
It’s getting so damn old. And i don’t know how to fix it.
Comment by Anonymous-T-Girl — November 13, 2009 @ 8:06 pm
Sorry…i ment, ‘entirely new account under my new name’.
Comment by Anonymous-T-Girl — November 13, 2009 @ 8:07 pm
oddly enough, when i called equifax and put a fraud alert on my credit file, the phone system automatically connected me to a live person. in seconds. i was shocked. totally unlike my experience with transunion, which only had an option to order a copy of my credit bureau, and have it mailed to my home. that’s right, *mailed* to my home. no option to speak to a human. i’ve had my mail stopped for a few weeks.
my equifax bureau no longer shows my birth name. i was happy to see that it shows my current name, and my maiden name. it’s been 7 or 8 years since i’ve legally changed my name, so like a delinquency, perhaps it just takes that amount of time for it to fall off.
i never contacted the credit bureaus when i changed my name. i just updated my name on all my credit accounts, and apparently that’s what updated the name shown on my credit bureaus. and you’re right, it should go by social security number. lets face it, women change their name all the time. and their credit history follows them, regardless of name. i’m not sure how one would proceed in your case to fix things
Comment by nexy — November 14, 2009 @ 4:03 pm