Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports

None of the prompts exactly fits my situation- but here goes : *XXXX  of XXXX - I open a credit card with XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX I set up the card for automatic payments ( paid in full monthly by statement date ), and electronic communications only ( email and text preferences ). My credit score is somewhere is the neighborhood of 800. I have never had any negative items on my credit score other than identity theft, which, after a large struggle, I was able to get all of the fraudulent activity removed. 

XXXX XXXX of XXXX - Without my knowledge and without any communication from XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX my card was sold to XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX DID call me and send me notices that I had a balance with them, but I live in Illinois. I had never heard of XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX, never opened an account with them for sure, and all of my accounts are set up for auto-pay. My fraud warnings were going off, I told them as much on the phone when they called. So I locked my credit report and kind of forgot about it and ignored all of their messages. 

*Around XXXX of XXXX - I'm checking on something on my XXXX account and I notice an alert that my XXXX XXXX went down. So I check and it went down over 100 points! I can't believe it! I'm convinced that I've been the victim of identify theft again. I go into Experian, find the XXXX XXXX line, which indicates that I have two late payments and a closed account. I immediately call Experian and report fraud, and I remember that some place in Nebraska had called me a few months back with some scam. I assume they just managed to get the rest of my information somehow. 

*Quickly thereafter - My fraud notice gets denied. I call Experian for an explanation and they say they almost always deny them unless there is a police report attached, especially when they are with a legitimate creditor. I can file a police report and try again but I should try and call the company to see if they had more information as they could clear it up quicker. I was unaware that this was a real company at this point. I call them, and that is when I find out my XXXX XXXX  XXXX card was sold to them. 

*I immediately pay all the outstanding debts I had on the account ( only ended up being a couple XXXX dollars, I guess I had a recurring order I didn't think about linked to that account ). Why didn't I realize that I wasn't paying the bill to XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX? Well, I have multiple credit cards with XXXX XXXX  XXXX all set up to Auto-debit in full every month. This card never had very high balances, and sometimes had no balances. I very rarely used this card. 

XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX refused to remove any of the negative information from my XXXXredit score. My credit score is as of today XXXX - from over 800 just months ago. I have been denied a mortgage and a business loan and two credit cards ( I am a small business owner that relies heavily on my credit ). I seem to have no option but to hire some lawyer to try and resolve this or just wait for seven years for this to fall off my credit score. It's very frustrating to have literally a lifetime of perfect credit ruined by something so stupid. How is the public supposed to guard against every scam imaginable while still being open to all of the possibilities of where our debts may be sold to? How can we know what is legitimate?