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I wish I had more upvotes to give you. Alas, I can give you only one.

I was the victim of low-grade identity theft about 10 years ago, all stemming from a credit card number illicitly imprinted by someone at a restaurant. Shit spiraled from there, and it took me years to clean up the fallout.

Dealing with the Big Three credit agencies was a process for which the word "Kafkaesque" somehow falls short of descriptive power. I've been caught in bureaucratic snafus at the DMV and the IRS, and in comparison, both of those processes were a walk in the park on a bright, sunny day.

Our country is basically a consumerocracy, in which one's credit rating is more or less one's fate. If we're going to bestow that much power upon a three-member oligopoly, then we should demand much greater responsibility of its members.

> I was the victim of low-grade identity theft about 10 years ago, all stemming from a credit card number illicitly imprinted by someone at a restaurant. Shit spiraled from there, and it took me years to clean up the fallout.

Can you explain this in more detail? I don't understand how a single stolen credit card can cause you years of problems.

The thief made some small purchases that would have been comical if their consequences hadn't been so ridiculous and far reaching. For instance, he rented a video at Blockbuster (!) that he didn't return. Blockbuster attempted to contact "me" several times about the video, assessing various late fees, but never charging them to my card for some odd reason, until finally it sent a collections agency after me. This entire, petty drama went unbeknownst to me until it wound up on my credit rating. All over a fraudulently derived, $15 late fee at a freaking video rental place.

Getting this incident wiped from my credit history took an elaborate and drawn-out series of phone calls, letters, forms, interviews, etc. Even then, a decent amount of damage had been done, and various reports had spawned other reports, and I was borked in countless derivative reports and company databases. I had to do some "rebuilding" (in the parlance of the credit companies) for a few years. And this was just one of several, roughly similar purchases that accrued in the system under my name. The irony is that a bolder thief, making bigger purchases and maxing out the card, would have caused less damage to me by catching everyone's attention in flagrante delicto.

Thanks for clearing that up. Did he make a fake ID to open the Blockbuster account? It sounds like he had more than your credit card. If all he had was your card Blockbuster wouldn't be able to go after you, they wouldn't have the necessary ID information.

No worries.

To be honest, I'm not sure. All I can do is speculate. All I really know is that my credit card number was obtained and was used to make a few small purchases. Blockbuster was one of them. I didn't find out about Blockbuster -- or its attempts to go after me -- until I got a letter in the mail from a collections agency. That was the first I'd heard of anything involving Blockbuster. I put two and two together and realized it must have stemmed from the credit card theft, which had happened a few months prior, and which I'd assumed had been largely wrapped up by then. I figured that the collections agency hadn't just been called in overnight. No doubt it was the third or fourth step in some procedure at Blockbuster, starting with phone calls and letters, presumably to whatever falsified address and number this guy gave them. When it finally came time to involve collections, collections probably figured that I was some sort of deadbeat, and that "my" address on file with Blockbuster was bogus, and that at least the credit card number and bank were valid. So they found a way to contact me at my real address. (It's also possible they found me, at that point, through some ancient account on file with Blockbuster's system. Who's to say how sophisticated their dedupe practices were with their DB, but I'm guessing not very?)

I have no idea what else was involved in the theft, above and beyond lifting my number. It's possible a fake ID was involved. I really can't say, and I don't want to overstep the bounds of my recollection.

The short version is that the way the credit system in the US works is basically an echo chamber. That one stolen credit card racks up a bunch of fraudulent charges, those charges get recorded by one of the credit reporting agencies and then shared with the other two. Those credit reports then get used as the basis for all kinds of other reports at other companies all the way up to and including the IRS. You basically spend the next X years arguing from one company to the next to fix the records, but the records tend to propagate faster than you can get them fixed, because everyone references everyone else.

Sadly at this point it would almost be simpler to concoct a new fake identity for yourself and get that entered in than it would be to fix your original corrupted identity.

Exactly.

If you happen to be lucky enough to catch somebody in the act, you can undo the damage pretty quickly, if not altogether painlessly. It'll take a huffy phone call to your credit card company, and some watchful waiting for a month or so afterward. You will get a new card, with a new number, and you'll have to set up new billing numbers for everything. A small, but sharp pain in the ass. [1]

But if you don't catch things right away, and god forbid, if something winds up on your credit report, you are capital-F Fucked. By then it's too late, and your fraudulent data is commingled with your real data in dozens of databases, each one echoing off of the other. The bad data sprouts like kudzu. You can pluck a few shoots out of the ground, and five more pop up in unexpected places, weeks or months later.

[1] You can also set up a proactive solution, like a super-sensitive, early-warning algo at your credit card company. But this net ends up snaring you half the time, like whenever you use your credit card to make small purchases, or buy gas, or out of state, etc. It gets a lot of false positives. My card gets blocked for "fraud" every few weeks, leading to minor headaches at restaurants, bars, and gas stations. But I guess I'll accept this hassle as the price I pay for advance warning of real fraud. At the same time, I'm concerned that this system is just as likely to run into false negatives, which would really suck.

Perhaps a first step would be to stop referring to it as "identity theft". That phrase places you as the victim, thus implicitly any injury is yours to bear. The proper victims of the fraudsters are the businesses falling for it, thus those firms should be the ones on the losing end (instead of you). Perhaps if they had to bear the costs of fraud, those firms would care more about shoddy identity practices.

Coincidentally, outside the US of A, where the fraud liability indeed lies with the defrauded business, "identity theft" is a much smaller problem, and isn't called as such.

Pushing the liability to the bank rather than merchant would also be a huge step forward.

Just so long as there's not a bailout back-door on that.

[1]Identity theft is the number 1 complaint 14 years running according to FTC. To answer your first question: MOAR.

Stories like yours make recovery policies, like [2]this, seem prudent.

[3]My very first post on hacker news, 3.5 years ago, stirred ZERO discussion. "Identity theft is an enormous problem, so what are the solutions? Who's working on something that practically everybody who uses the internet should consider looking into?"

[1]http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/id-theft-tops-ftcs-...

[2]http://www.zanderins.com/idtheft/idtheft.aspx

[3]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2163006

Identity Theft Shield through Kroll Advisory Solutions is the best program on the market. Nothing can prevent it but they are the best at putting the pieces back together after the breach has occurred.Take a look at http://www.legalshield.com/idt/amysosa Let me know what you think.

Lawyer up and sue. I'm assuming you're American because you referenced Experian. FCRA gives you two years.

Or just camp out outside Experian's hq and try to destroy their headquarters using psionic powers. Concentrate really hard!

Equal chances of success as suing them but considerably less expensive.

I didn't sue Experian, but I did sue a collection agency that was reporting an account that wasn't mine- their lawyer called and agreed to have everything removed. I didn't hire a lawyer myself, I filed Small Claims. While it was a pain, it didn't take long after filing the suit to get the record cleared up. If it happens again, I'm going to file suit much faster.

You're right. We should all just stay quiet and know our place.

>>Equal chances of success as suing them but considerably less expensive.

Also considerably more likely to get you arrested, possibly with overwhelming force.

> Also considerably more likely to get you arrested, possibly with overwhelming force.

Which could possibly cause media attention and Internet outrage, so it still feels like a better option than suing.

Stop the unlawful use of police force against mutants!

Sadly we have to put up with Experian (and Equifax) in the UK as well. The third most popular agency being CallCredit which for me didn't even have a fraction of my credit history thus causing me severe difficulties when I was arranging a simple mobile phone contract! There needs to be better regulation of these outfits with regards to who gets this data and completeness of data.

It is also very disconcerting that these credit rating companies offer a non-free service to help you improve your credit rating score. That seems pretty damn close to being like a protection racket.

And even when you do pay them they still can't get it right. My bank made a huge error after I separated from my ex-wife back in 2004. When we dissolved the joint account they updated all my addresses to her address and then maintained her as a "linked" person despite us having no financial ties or liabilities.

It took months to fix the address thing and still ten years later I cannot get them to competently resolve the "being financially linked" data error. Sure this was a data provider that caused the problem and they should be responsible for fixing it. But in the end it became impossible to fix because there is no single department in the bank through which the credit record data is passed.

Trying to work with the credit scoring agencies was futile because they just bounce you back to the data provider telling you to tell them to fix their data.

It's like living the the world of Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

It may be like living in Gilliam's Brazil, but we do actually have fairly good protections against this that can usually be used to break out of the bureaucratic nightmare:

(this should be obvious, but just to be sure: IANAL)

Send them a letter where you give them 1 month to resolve the problem, providing full documentation that you are divorced and point that as such the information is incorrect, and that under the Data Protection Act they are legally obliged to ensure incorrect personal information about you is amended or deleted. If you have past correspondence with them where they acknowledge the information is incorrect, then provide copies.

Inform them that if the matter is not resolved, or they have contacted you to agree on how to resolve it, within 30 days, you will file a formal complaint with the Information Commissioner (ico.org.uk).

Provide the same notification to the bank (ensure it is addressed to the legal department).

The credit scoring agencies has a legal obligation under the Data Protection Act to ensure personal information is correct. This applies to all organizations subject to EU data protection rules (which is pretty much everyone with very limited exceptions). That the data comes from a third party is not an excuse if you have provided documentation that the information is wrong. (it may be reasonable that they refer you there first, but if you have tried to get the bank to fix it, and they've not, then it is not reasonable for them to continue to insist).

Ultimately, if even the ICO can not get them to budge, go to a lawyer. Failure to rectify this information is blatant violation of the principles of the Data Protection Act, and you can get a court order to have the information corrected, and in some cases even require that they contact every recipient of the flawed information.

In your case this is important. If either one of you goes bankrupt e.g. you risk the other ones credit score being ruined for about a decade. But frankly, in most cases a threat about a complaint to the ICO ought to be enough. If you've written a letter and complained to ICO, and they fail to correct the information, then a court case will be a walk in the park.

Also note that in certain circumstances you may be due damages incurred as a result of the incorrect information.

See: http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guid...

A last consideration: The Data Protection Act also provides you with some means of insisting that certain types of decisions are not taken automatically, or to have automated decisions reconsidered. This provides you a fallback if e.g. you are often refused credit based on automated scoring based on the flawed data. You can notify the bank in advance in writing that you do not consent to automated decision making, and providing documentation of the divorce, or you can demand a manual reconsideration afterwards (and provide the same documentation).

Appreciated, I hadn't thought about trying to use the data protection ICO.

In the EU they're subject to data protection laws, so in the UK if they are unresponsive, a combination of a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office + issuing a Subject Access Notice (demanding a copy of the information they hold on you under the Data Protection Act, though some of the information may be exempt it should assist in finding further details on where any bad data comes from if the agency in question doesn't divulge the full details on your credit report) should generally help.

Under EU data protection laws, in most cases failure to provide you a way to delete or amend incorrect personal information held about you is a clear violation of the law. As is failure to grant you access to information about whom they have passed personal information about you on to.

That doesn't mean they won't try to act like asses sometimes, but bringing up the Data Protection Act and mention a complaint to the Information Commissioner can and does make a difference.

Exactly this. Why does the credit card system exist like this? Every time I mention it, people get all worked up about chargebacks and that it's not a big deal and all.

Hey, I don't need to check my account whether I need to chargeback anything. If I need to pay people, I pay people, I don't give them the equivalent to a login.