Someone's Using My Address
Apologies if this is a bit off topic, but it is a homeowner issue of sorts: for the past week we have been getting collection calls (some recorded, some live) from “Ed Fund” about a “federal financial matter. They’re looking for a person who does not live here and never has… however, she just happens…
Apologies if this is a bit off topic, but it is a homeowner issue of sorts: for the past week we have been getting collection calls (some recorded, some live) from “Ed Fund” about a “federal financial matter. They’re looking for a person who does not live here and never has… however, she just happens to have the same last name as we do. And today I got two Sallie Mae bills for her in the mail. What gives? Our number is unlisted, although in this day and age it’s probably easy for a person to dig up our name, phone and address. According to Sallie Mae, “Ed Fund” is not affiliated with them. This is two separate agencies looking for this woman, one of whom has our phone and the other of whom has our address. Should I be worried about this? I guess it’s not an identity theft issue unless someone’s using my name, but it makes me nervous to have our address and phone erroneously linked to someone else (with the same last name!) by collections agencies, plural. Did these agencies just get their wires crossed somehow, or is Miss X doing this deliberately? Could this mess up our credit rating? Any suggestions for how to proceed?
Like Donatella, we have a different but similar problem. The ne’er do well son of the former longtime owner of our house (now deceased) who hasn’t owned or lived here in several years still to this day puts our address as his, with the DMV, with car rentals, with Social Security, child support and employers. And the mail always somehow looks like he’s in trouble for something at any given time. I put each and every piece of mail back, with “return to sender, incorrect address, please correct your records” on it but the mail for him still comes in waves every once in a while. I just can’t believe places like the DMV don’t make sure a home address is correct – don’t they require a utility bill in their name or something?
This is a little different, but has some similiarities. I used to come home every day to dunning phone calls from the Municipal Credit Union for a person who used to have my telephone number. It went on forever, despite my attempts to contact them and get my number off their list. It was driving me nuts and when the people started getting nasty to me, I decided to really give them a hard time. I contacted the NYC Department of Consumer affairs who registered the complaint and then told me to write to the NY State Banking Department. I finally wrote a letter to the NY State Banking Department. I got a letter back from them and then a letter from the president of the freaking MDC saying sorry, blah blah blah. And it finally stopped. But for you, it is definately possible that you could be incorrectly tagged with this problem. You should complain to NYC Consumer Affairs, the NYS Banking Department, check your credit reports (three agencies) and if it persists, write letters to the three credit unions telling them of the possible confusion. Good luck.
Sometimes when a person seems to disappear off the face of the earth, their creditors start looking for them and find people with similar names. I used to get calls at work from my bank about someone with almost the same name who was not paying his mastercard bill. Eventually they realized they were calling the wrong person. I actually use a credit monitoring service offered by Bank of America – it gives me peace of mind knowing that I’ll get an e-mail every time there’s a hard inquiry on my credit report, and they send me a full report quarterly. Maybe it is a waste of $12.95 a month, but what the hell, it’s less than the cost of a bottle of mediocre wine.
You can get your credit report 3 times a year – utterly free – one from each agency.
http://www.annualcreditreport.com
Agree with Vinca. You need to make sure this is just some kind of weird coincidence and that you’re not a victim of identity theft.
You can check your credit report for FREE once a year, from equifax or one of the other companies. Don’t pay for any upsells–it should be totally free.
You might also want to put a freeze on your credit report. This means no one can run a check on your credit until you unfreeze it. Which is useful because if someone has stolen your identity and tries to open up a credit card, the credit card company will run the credit check, see the freeze, and refuse to issue a card. Downside is you have to remember to un-freeze it if you want to do anything that requires your credit–but that’s for things like credit cards and buying a house, so it’s not like you shouldn’t remember. Information on how to do this is here:
http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/003484indiv.html
And to make these calls stop, you should tell them you are not this person, and if they harass you, they’re actually financially liable:
http://consumerist.com/5031790/psycho-debt-collectors-will-not-stop-calling-me-about-someone-elses-debt
The next time you get a phone call from the bill collectors, simply tell them they no longer have your permission to call your number. By law, they must stop calling your number as soon as you tell them that. I am not 100% sure but the same may apply for the collection notices you receive in the mail.
Check your credit report! We had the same calls and letters for awhile and never thought much of it until we tried to purchase a vehicle and got denied tier 1 financing–which we figured we were eligible for based on earlier credit reports. We found out that the person with the same first and last name as my husband (different middle name) is a pretty bad guy (he’s wanted for felonies and assaults) and it eventually affected our credit report. It has taken weeks to correct and we’re not sure if its fully done.
When you get your credit report make sure you don’t accidentally “allow” them to take money out of your bank account for any kind of “protection”. One of my friends did that and now she is seeing that charge on her debit card every month, with of course nobody that can be reached at the agency… I googled that problem and found quite a few complaints!
Thanks brownstoner readers. You guys are the best. I’m very relieved to hear this is a common thing and my paranoia is unfounded. I didn’t know collection agencies took such a scattershot approach!