Complaint Review: Equifax Transunion Experian

The use of credit monitoring should be weighed between value of documentation, and the value of notification services.

In order for us to discuss documentation vs. notification you must first understand and fully comprehend, there are multiple kinds if ID theft and they affect the credit reports in different ways.

1) True Name Fraud A Person uses your name and your address/Their address and your SSN to apply for credit, this will show on your credit report, and monitoring will work in this case very nicely.
However, this is the only kind of Id theft it actually works for and they do not disclose anywhere on their sites that this is the ONLY kind of fraud it can actually be a useful notification tool for.

2) SSN Only fraud They say it is the fastest growing, I say it has always been the most prevalent form of ID theft. People entering the country illegally need an SSN to work. It is required for I-9's and Tax withholding.

They do not need your name, but they can wreak havoc in the credit markets by essentially taking your rightful place under your number. If they also do not pay the bills, their skip tracers will find you, and attempt to collect their debts from you. It has happened to us, so we know. They can cause criminal justice problems by using your number for accidents, insurance, and criminal arrests (We know about this as well, and are still cleaning up this problem). They can also cause severe problems in civil court judgments, bankruptcy filings. In Need of social services? Fraudulent use of your SSN can cause you to lose SSI payments and your Social security check if retired. One site I read by someone who has lost some of their disability payments because someone is using their number fraudulently and they are reducing her benefit by the amount of their earnings.

Credit monitoring does not work for this form of ID theft. AT ALL.

Because of the CRA's crappy business practices which they lie to the public about. In the Salt Lake tribune on June 6, 2004 Experian and Equifax denied the existence of sub files through their spokespeople. Only TransUnion refused to comment.

I know they exist I have personally seen them. I have copies of the Transunion sub file accounts from Transunion, and more importantly, I also know for several accounts we had closed the fraud department reps said that Equifax and Experian sold them the report used to make their credit granting decision. They did not know we existed. Had NEVER even seen my husband's name before.

Their practice of NOT treating SSN's as unique identifiers in their databases causes this problem.

The way it works is simple. If you have John Doe and Charlie Moe both using the same SSN of 000-00-0000 then there will be two separate files. But wait you say, the number was only issued to John Doe.

Too bad, the CRA is making money off extra business data tools like Social Search, DTEC, and Hawk. They are also making money every time they sell the Charlie Moe report, they are double dipping on your social security number in terms of report sales since they sell the John Doe report and the Charlie Moe report they effectively DOUBLE THEIR REVENUE AT YOUR EXPENSE.

Cleaning up the Fraud is NOT a cost effective proposition for them, they lose half their revenue, and their so-called SSN fraud tools they spent millions to develop would be worthless.

If the sub files did not exist as claimed in the Salt Lake City Tribune on June 6, 2004 "A New Wrinkle in ID theft" , there would not be UP TO 20 CONSUMERS USING THE SAME SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER in their records at Experian.

So, what motivation do they have to fix the problem?

The ANSWER IS NONE again in my opinion.

They will not help you remove the fraudulent information from the bureau.

In fact they will tell you after you report it that they will continue to maintain it if they will even speak to you at all (Transunion). They may just tell you We need a federal court order to comply and after that silence (Experian and Equifax). That is right they FORCED us to SUE them to get the stuff fixed, where else are we going get a federal court order to get our life fixed unless we sue in federal court?

THE REAL QUESTION IS WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO MAINTAIN FRAUDULENT INFORMATION?

Who i$ it really valuable to?

Certainly not the rightful holder of the SSN.

Therefore IT is my opinion they should have to pay a royalty fee for using the fraud information in this manner, with the owners consent of course. You would have the right to refuse.

After all WHO really OWNS the number. Them or YOU?

If you had true name fraud, they would have to delete it to maintain your credit report accuracy. However, with SSN only fraud and the creation of the sub file they can THUMB their nose at you, by saying your report is accurate. Even though it is wreaking financial havoc throughout your life. Because they continue to SELL the fraudulent report behind your back. They deny you the right to consent for your social security number to be used for the purpose of another and they exercise DOMINION over the use of your confidential information with these products showing you have been the victim of fraud while not cleaning it up.

So much for the FCRA and the Investigation, they are supposed to perform for disputed information.
Of course, fraud is disputed information, and once proven to be fraudulent (In our case they got on three occasions a police report,Social Security card copy, Drivers License copy, and a Notarized FTC ID THEFT affidavidt--I mean come on what more do you want?) it should have been removed WITHOUT question.

They not only were they NOT doing it, they essentially said that if we did not have the price of admission for legal council and to fund a lawsuit, we were getting NO action, NO relief, and NEVER MADE WHOLE again. And with out the SUB-FILE how are you ever going to resolve this form of ID theft to make yourself whole again?

The Answer here is YOU CAN'T (As much as I know you don't want to hear that, this is the answer I simply do not have and cannot get yet)

You can fish all day for accounts by calling various credit card companies and speaking to their fraud divisions. I spent 4 months of my life doing that 8 hours a day and I found 3 total accounts. My husband was not amused either.

But with the SHEER number of potential credit card companies, loan brokers, and other creditors available, and no access to the sub file, I have no way to get them all or even to find them all.

They have wasted HUGE amounts of our time being obstructionary, wasted huge amounts of our money, wasted part of my health from stress.

Moreover, if they are reading this DIATRIBE, they NOW know we are NOT going away. WE WERE NEVER GOING TO GET IT FIXED NOT EVER by Listening to them.

They honestly were hoping that we would not be able to fund a lawsuit, or find a lawyer to represent us.

I aim to tell everyone who will listen about deception, and deliberate fraud, they are conducting by selling this type of product without the proper limiters and disclaimers; of course, this entire posting is ONLY in my opinion.

This is the most perverse shell game known to man. They are allowing the identity theft to happen by creating sub files in the first place. They then sit there for as long as possible selling both reports and profiting off the crime spree, when you discover it they sell you a monitoring product, further profiting and re-victimizing the victim. Then they sell your SSN as being associated with fraud in fraud monitoring products they sell to business; I mean how can that ever be good. If the creditor happened to see that, would they grant you a loan? Even if you are the victim? Furthermore given the bureaus crappy history of dealing with and creating ERRORS in the first place, do you trust them to be correct in attributing the designation of fraudulent user to any SSN?

After all, if they could really do that then WHY would they have created the subfile in the first place?

So the real question is why are they doing it?

Near as I can tell it is all about the Benjamin's, the $$$$$'s in some cases they are making hundreds of millions of dollars off these monitoring products they no longer have any rationale for what is right and what is wrong where huge cash cows are concerned, apparently their character is questionable, again that is my opinion, if they want another number to be used so badly they should offer their own for public usage in these so called sub files.

Cause we want ours back.

We asked them nicely to fix it, and then our Lawyers asked them nicely to fix it. Then the lawyers demanded they fix it. They ignored us, they told our lawyer to get a federal court order.


Fraud products are big bu$ine$$ and bu$ine$$ is too d**n good these day$.


Do not be an additional victim.

If you are a victim of SSN only fraud or your are sitting here reading this report going I am not a victim. The real question NOW that I have told you how it works, is HOW do you really know if you haven't found it yet? We only found ours by ACCIDENT. The bureaus NEVER told us, and I OWN all three credit monitoring products. Then do not buy this product for that reason, it does not provide ANY relevant information.

Other than documenting your fraud alerts are in place and making sure all fraud inquiries remain soft and that is the only value in it for you. That is what you really have to weigh. Against the hefty price tag for that.

When we signed up for those products, we thought we would get the information at first to make sure there was no problem, and then to fix the problem, and to make sure it would not recur, boy were we SO wrong.

Any advertisements they make as to being able to protect you from identity theft?

Those are pure fiction in my opinion; in our practical experience, our monitoring products have NEVER informed us of any IDENTITY THEFT.

It is the basis of our lawsuit and furthermore a major source of damages.

Their product delayed the filing of the police report from August of 2002 to January 2003. By giving the ILLUSION there was no identity theft.

Their product led us to believe that since nothing was on the product we were all good. No Accounts no fraudulent activity NOTHING.

And since SSN's are only assigned to ONE person by the federal government it never occurred to us that sub-files even existed.

Credit monitoring can NEVER prevent someone from using your credit to open fraudulent accounts.

They are not preventative in nature but an alert system.

But in the almost two years (Aug 2002) since we signed up for the Equifax Credit Watch Silver, we have never received a single notification of ID theft and we have now over $300,000 documented fraudulent credit and the actual amount of undocumented fraudulent credit is over $400,000.

(I admit I have failed to find the mortgage for the second house listed as owned by the thief in the public records, the mortgage listed on the original filing for the tax assessors office is no longer in the mortgage business and I do not know where it went, that Mortgage is over $95,000 and as far as I know it is not shut down yet.)

Only because I have been unable to find it and the other two bureaus are hiding their files.

The Bureau that furnished a listing of the fraudulent accounts was Transunion, but they never provided us with an official copy of the sub file, so how do I know they sent it all?

How can I ever know or prove I received everything?

I Can't and without that Piece of Mind my family can never be made whole again.

Melody
Overland Park, Kansas
U.S.A.

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