Just a heads up: If you haven't checked your credit report in a while, you might want to do it now. A lot of people wonder where their bad credit comes from, and sometimes it genuinely isn't their fault; bad charges, and, in my case, credit card fraud.
I knew something was off because I've been consistently turned down by online vendors when I've applied for credit recently. So, I went to the bank today for a small loan to put towards some holiday gifts and the computer I planned on building. I've dealt with this bank for quite a while and assumed that taking out a fairly small loan would be no issue at all. I was turned down. The loan officer showed me my Equifax report that included an almost $3,000 credit card write-off in my name.
Considering I haven't even owned a credit card, I did some research. When trying to access your credit file on the Equifax website, they ask you for your full name, address, SS#, DOB, etc. That went fine. After that, they ask you four security questions, all of which have to do with information inside your account so you're the only one that knows the answer to them. Three different times I tried to get in, and all three different times came up with new questions and account info that absolutely did not belong to me. From what I can gather so far, someone that lives in SC and has changed their name slightly a couple different times has bought quite a few different things in my name and never paid them off. Apparently, they've also incorrectly guessed how to spell the name of my street several times.
I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this, and I wanted to give everyone a heads-up to protect themselves from this type of thing; don't wanna see your kids not get what they want for Christmas because someone stole your identity. I'm really not even sure what to do at this point.
I knew something was off because I've been consistently turned down by online vendors when I've applied for credit recently. So, I went to the bank today for a small loan to put towards some holiday gifts and the computer I planned on building. I've dealt with this bank for quite a while and assumed that taking out a fairly small loan would be no issue at all. I was turned down. The loan officer showed me my Equifax report that included an almost $3,000 credit card write-off in my name.
Considering I haven't even owned a credit card, I did some research. When trying to access your credit file on the Equifax website, they ask you for your full name, address, SS#, DOB, etc. That went fine. After that, they ask you four security questions, all of which have to do with information inside your account so you're the only one that knows the answer to them. Three different times I tried to get in, and all three different times came up with new questions and account info that absolutely did not belong to me. From what I can gather so far, someone that lives in SC and has changed their name slightly a couple different times has bought quite a few different things in my name and never paid them off. Apparently, they've also incorrectly guessed how to spell the name of my street several times.
I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this, and I wanted to give everyone a heads-up to protect themselves from this type of thing; don't wanna see your kids not get what they want for Christmas because someone stole your identity. I'm really not even sure what to do at this point.