After my recent open-armed acceptance into the world of good credit, I decided to look into my credit reports.
Legally, the three biggest credit agencies have to provide you a copy of your credit at no cost, at least once a year. www.annualcreditreport.com is the place to go. It's all online, and it's supposed to be painless.
Equifax is the big one, the one that I was most interested in. However, their online registration adds an extra step: Identity Validation.
They ask you two questions based on your credit report, your personal credit history. Two questions that only the real you should know.
For Elise, the two questions were: What bank is your car loan drawn on? and What are your monthly payments on the car loan? They're multiple choice and like I said... painless.
Now then, my credit report pulled up these two questions...
In August of 2000 you took out a mortgage through what lender?
For what terms is said mortgage?
Allright, allright, allright, allright, allright... seeing as I was only fifteen years old in 2000, seeing as I have never even danced around the idea of a mortgage... this question was a little more than puzzling: was actually quite scary.
Could my good credit be the product of identity theft: that was the real question.
Still there were options to choose "None of the above." So I chose them, hoping that the question was just one of the trick variety.
I failed the validation, cancelling my online credit report and leaving me with only one other option. To send a formal letter by US Mail requesting my report in 6 to 8 weeks.
Because now, under the threat of identiy theft, is when I want to wait 6 to 8 weeks to see what the hell is going on.
Then I discovered that the first step to purchasing your online credit report from Equifax was the validation... so I decided to answer the question until I got it right and then pay the $9.50 to see what is going on.
Same mortgage question... completely different answers. Not a single answer that was the same. Since none of above was incorrect the first time and these answers were all new, I selected none of the above again and got into my credit report. Not for free, as I was rightfully owed, but for the $9.50. But a small price to see the truth.
The truth was boring. My credit is clean. There's nothing there. Just one credit card that has been payed on time every single month for an entire year. (Which is why my credit is suddenly good, I hit the one year mark on my credit card.) It is, no kidding the ONLY thing listed anywhere on my credit other than recent inquiries like the power company, Cingular and etc.
My second credit card isn't even listed... it is apparently issued under Queequeg Films Inc.'s credit and I now know that it is basically useless to me for credit building purposes. So I'll pay it off and use it only in emergencies.
Most importantly, there is no history of a mortgage, of applying for a mortgage, of anything to do with a mortgage. Thank God. The only problem now was...
Not only did Equifax fuck me into buying my report, they downright SCARED me into buying it. You can't go anywhere on their site without whirling, flashing things slapping you in the face with the words "IDENTITY THEFT" and then they tell me that they can't give me my free report because I answered the question about "my mortgage" incorrectly?
I fired off an angry email, requesting not only a refund but an audit of their "Identity Validation" software.
They replied with this fuck you:
Please review the TERMS OF USE that you accepted when ordering this product. ALL SALES OF ONE-TIME PRODUCTS ARE FINAL. You will not be entitled to a refund.
So I called them up and they put me on hold, listening to their hold message that kept repeating: "Over ten million people are victims of identity theft. Are you one of them? Order our special....."
The short of it is... I got a refund, but the woman was quick to note that it was a "One-time courtesy refund." Because, "We NEVER give out refunds." To get it, I had to explain that I accepted their terms of service under the false pretenses that I had a mortgage on my report and that, "Quite frankly, I'm a little concerned that your computer system thought that I did." That I knew that I should be aware of identity theft, but never thought that I had to be concerned about Equifax's handling of my own financial information.
Bitches. I think I've gotten really good at being a dick on the phone in these past few weeks.
Still couldn't get the cable company to give me HBO outside of a twenty channel premium package. Maybe one day, maybe one day.
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