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Straightening out the mess took nearly four weeks, a dozen phone calls and a visit to the local Social Security office, where I had to sign an affidavit attesting, "I am indeed alive and well . . ." As it turned out, I had fallen victim to the single most common credit-record error: cross-merged files. In such cases, which according to Williams afflict as many as one of every eight credit consumers, people with similar names or addresses have their credit histories mixed together. Often this occurs when a John Doe Sr. and Jr. live at the same address. Another common variation on the theme occurs when the credit histories of ex-spouses remain linked long after the divorce.
Mistaken identity is not the only brand of credit nightmare. Other glitches include out-of-date information, as when loan payments have been made but not yet recorded, and erroneous or inaccurate information supplied by creditors or consumers. Student-loan providers are notorious for incorrectly reporting that people have missed payments.
For their part, the major credit agencies contend that Williams overstates the importance of minor inaccuracies in consumer records. The agencies maintain that somewhat out-of-date or incomplete information does not necessarily hurt a consumer's chances of getting a loan. "A credit report is just a snapshot," says Barry Connelly, senior vice president of Associated Credit Bureaus, an industry group. "What consumers fail to understand is that credit is based on history, not on how you are this moment, this day."
) The credit agencies point out that banks, credit-card companies and other consumer lenders sometimes fail to report promptly on the status of their accounts. Another problem in the industry is that federal law prohibits the credit repositories from sharing information, so that updated information that reaches one databank may still be missing from others.
Although Citibank finally reopened my Visa credit line, it has not returned my wife's card. But it did mail me an R.S.V.P. certificate to apply for another Citibank-American Airlines frequent-flyer credit card. And this one offers a free round-trip companion plane ticket. Wonder if I should apply.