Consumer complaint received 2020-07-15
Company: Experian Information Solutions Inc.
State: VA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report
Sub-issue: Credit inquiries on your report that you don't recognize

Complaint:
In XX/XX/2020 I filed an Identity Theft report with the FTC against my ex-wife because I realized she had used my personal information to get approved for two apartments that she lived in and then abandoned, and I was left with the legal repercussions of being on her now broken lease without having any prior knowledge of it. I took action and filed the report and placed a security freeze and fraud alert on my credit with all three bureaus and sent them all my Identity Theft report so they were aware of the situation. Just yesterday, XX/XX/2020, I went to check on my credit accounts with all three bureaus to see how they looked. I was able to get into XXXX and XXXX  no problem, but for some reason I couldn't log in to my Experian account. I selected 'forgot username ' as an option to log in and it said that it had sent my  username information to the email on file, XXXX ', which is not my email but my ex-wife 's. I'm not sure how she managed to gain access to this account but she does know all my personal information from when we were married, including my social security number, date of birth, etc. I immediately tried to contact her and asked her to take her email off my account and although my message is 'read ' I haven't received any communication back from her. I also noticed that there were multiple inquiries on my account from the past few weeks from XXXX XXXX which I don't remember authorizing. I immediately tried to contact Experian to fix the problem and get into my account but it was a nightmare. I sent an email to their customer care center explaining the situation and still haven't heard back. Then I tried to call but it took over 3 hours to get on the phone with an actual human to explain the situation and that was useless because they said that they couldn't verify my identity over the phone. I told them that this was an emergency situation because my ex-wife was able to access my account as we speak and that I had already filed an identity theft report against her and they said that since I hadn't provided my social security number with my communication back in XXXX that this wasn't enough for them to take action and I had to send them this documentation in the mail again. I did so and mailed a copy of my driver 's license, social security card and the documentation to place a security freeze and fraud alert along with an explanation of the situation to them yesterday, but I'm panicked that she will try to take out another loan or fill out an application in my name again under my credit. The lawsuits that resulted from this back in XXXX and are still ongoing have already cost me thousands of dollars and I don't want this to happen again. I want the bureaus to verify my identity verbally over the phone before they allow any inquiries to come through, because I need to ensure that they're not coming from her.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation