captainsensible

Hi, I have been having trouble recently, validating my identity with various organisations which I am a little confused about. Background is:

Moved to the US through work in August 2012 and was given a SSN shortly after arriving.

Lived with my USC wife at her address until Jan 18th, then we moved into a rented house. I changed all my banking addresses to the new address, including my AMex card and car lease account.

Now, well over a month after we moved, I am having trouble with anything that requires my address/SSN e.g. I opened a Capital One bank account online last week, and it could not verify my identity with my new address but when I tried with my old address it was fine - it then let me change my account details to the new address.

Also, today I tried to sign up for a free trial with identityguard.com but this also could not verify my identity with my new address.

Is this unusual? Does it normally take so long for this info to filter through to whomever keeps it (the credit agencies I imagine)?

Pulaski

It sounds like you haven't notified the DMV in your state, (?) and that is the record that often feeds the identifying part of your credit record. Apart from that, it doesn't surprise me that things haven't straighten themselves out yet.

captainsensible

I got my updated drivers license (or rather a card with my new address on it) 3 days after we moved, so they definitely know.

Your second comment implies that the different areas are quite inefficient when it comes to communicating with each other?

Michael

I believe they get that information from your credit report. Until payment information is reported by lenders to the credit bureaus, it probably doesn't get updated. Lenders may wait until the end of the month before batch reporting the information so hopefully by March, everything will be up to date.

Pulaski

You could describe them as inefficient, from a perspective of 2013, with so many things connected real time or happening over night. However the reality of the credit scoring and similar financial databases is that they run on periodic batch files, so it can take upto a month for the data to be transferred, and it might take several weeks more for the data to be processed and uploaded.

And then, at the end of the day, the resulting file is cluttered with junk, errors, and artifacts - imagine a list of every variation of your address you've ever seen, legitimate and with errors, that accumulates over time, often with blended addresses when you move, and your name confused with others in your town with a similar name and previous occupants of your address. It quickly gets knotted into a giant plate of spaghetti. For example I now get junk mail at my home address for a young man, who I have never met, who has never lived at my address, but who shares my last name, and from whose grandmother I bought a house. This transaction and the surname match apparently led to someone, or more likely some computer application, to "fuzzy match" us as relatives!

jeffreyhy

I get junk mail addressed to my ex-wife (divorced 15 years ago, she's since re-married and re-divorced and hasn't used my surname in all that time) and my daughter-in-law.

My wife is not happy about it, thinking that it must somehow be my fault that advertisers think those women are living at our address.

Regards, JEff

Pulaski

Do you live in Salt Lake City?

jeffreyhy

Not even close!

Nor do they. They live halfway across the country from me and have never lived in the area where I live, although I once lived in the area where they live. I wonder if they get mail for me?

Regards, JEff

ian-mstm

We occasionally get mail for Sheila's ex. I usually just write "Deceased, Return to Sender" and drop it in the mailbox. The guy lives in Houston!

Ian

Bluegrass Lass

Back in 2005, we briefly moved in with my mother for a few months. We then moved out, and to a different state. She then started receiving mail that was addressed to "Mrs. My Mom's Name and Mr. My Name"..they assumed we were married...probably because I have a unisex name.

To the OP, it takes time for your new address to filter through to the credit bureaus. The usual standard is that new changes (like a new account) take about 30 days to show up on the credit bureau reports. That's probably why the new accounts you tried to open couldn't verify your new address.

Pulaski

RICH

Don't worry, we know who you are

captainsensible

Lol!

GeoffM

According to the water company, gas company, and trash company in the area we're about to move to, we don't quite exist yet, despite being here 10 months and having a handful of US credit cards to our name. Seems we can't be trusted with a $50/mo gas bill but can be trusted with $25k of credit between us.

No, I'm not surprised.

jeffreyhy

I'm not surprised either - the utility companies are not banks, the government isn't going to bail them out if they establish imprudent credit practices that go bad.

Regards, JEff