I found out the other day that someone has opened a new Kohls store card in my name, a wal mart card, a green dot bank account, and supposedly a chase bank account. I also got a letter in the mail that someone ordered $203 worth of shit from a mail order cheese company. My question is how is this possible if my credit reports have been frozen? I have verified they were still frozen. When I called equifax to question them on how this could’ve happened they denied the existence of the new accounts, but I have gotten letters in the mail and they have even shown up on Credit Karma. I am taking steps to close the fraudulent accounts and have set up a fraud alert but if it happened before with a freeze on my reports, what’s to stop it from happening again? And how did it happen in the first place? Is this on the fault of the credit bureaus?
Credit freezes are not perfect. Things can slip past them (though it is unusual). Check your credit reports on [annualcreditreport.com](https://annualcreditreport.com) and start disputing fraudulent accounts from your reports. File an ID theft report at [FTC.gov](https://FTC.gov) and file a ID theft police report with local police dept.
>When I called equifax to question them
Did you freeze Experian and TransUnion too? If not, it’s possible the new lines of credit were granted via the other credit bureaus.
Only time ive seen something similar is illegal aliens using stolen ssn’s with a name similar to the real person. Different spelling, one letter more or less, just close enough to make it seem like a typo. Instead of having their own credit file opened, it gets assigned to the real persons file.
You may find these links helpful:
– [Credit Building](/r/personalfinance/wiki/credit_building)
– [Credit Reports](/r/personalfinance/wiki/credit_reports)
– [Credit Scores](/r/personalfinance/wiki/fico)
– [Credit Cards](/r/personalfinance/wiki/creditcards)
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As far as bank accounts, a lot of banks use chexsystems, do you have that locked? I’m not sure how one could pin fault on the bureaus as you would have to know if they are actually giving out the info upon request. Could be the retailers themselves ignoring the block and allowing credit anyway. Both scenarios sound unlikely but if your stuff is indeed locked and credit is being issued, something is definitely not right. I can see one thing slipping through, multiple things sounds like a break in the chain somewhere.
Curious as to how this could happen. Maybe someone with your same name?