I absolutely hate our entire credit system, the lazy way it handles our sensitive info, and the eagerness to extend credit to anyone without scrutiny of their identity.

Big incoherent rant incoming:

In 2016 someone stole my identity and in about a 1 month period took out tens of credit cards and new bank accounts and phone account which they immediately over drafted. They somehow managed to change the address in my credit file, and so I wasn't getting any failure to pay notices. At the same time it was quite soon I found out because at least one creditor managed to find my real address asking about a 18,000 loan approval for furniture from The Brick. The police were easy enough to deal with and took a report and I had to use this to prove to creditors it was fraud.

I had Equifax do their own investigation, and they agreed it was fraud, but they only removed the creditors who happened to appear on file during their investigation.

A year past, and I check my credit and it was 799, all clear. Then last fall I get a call from a creditor saying I owe them money, they required I go to their bank to fill out the paperwork. One more cleared. Then in February I'm hearing from yet another bank about an overdraft account. Once again I proved to them it was fraud by providing the police report number. "Ok, well it will take us 30-45 days to remove this from your credit file". Its coming up to 45 days and its still there. I called them to clarify about when it will be removed, and get the same bs. I do not believe their word so I have also sent another dispute to equifax. MY MORTGAGE RENEWAL IS DUE JUNE 1 AND THIS SHIT HAS STOPPED ME FROM MOVING MORTGAGE PROVIDERS TO GET A BETTER RATE.

Now during this latest fiasco, I do another credit check and discover ANOTHER phone company on there says I have a bad debt with them and a note that a collections agency is after me. I succeed in having this removed from my credit file after dealing with Equifax, but for reasons beyond me they did not remove the one from the bank I am disputing in the previous paragraph, so I have to hope it will clear when they way it will (30-45 days from early April), or hope my second dispute works. Note that these latest bad debts are still originating from 2016, its just taken the banks that long to pin the blame on me and attack my credit file.

So this has been a lot of stress on me, I have failed to secure a new mortgage lender which will cost me in interest over the next 3 years on mortgage payments. In addition, I just discovered my TransUnion file is still a giant mess with shit from last fall on it. Apparently Trans Union and Equifax don't synchronize.

Long story short, there isn't shit you can do to speed up anyone helping you. The police are competent and will have your back but they can't stop creditors from attacking your file. Equifax is slow and not thorough in their investigations and make themselves hard to reach. The banks can pin a bad debt on anyone they chose, never mind that the onus should be on them to prove I took out the loans they claim. Like, show me a signature, show me the ID used to get the loan... Oh its fake? Then fuck off. Nope, they will make you jump hoops to prove it isn't you, and then the cherry on top is they will be very very slow to do anything to remove it off your credit file once you have in fact proven its not you.

Good luck to all of you, you are all vulnerable to this shit.