{"id":31190,"date":"2021-05-14T12:59:20","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T16:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=31190"},"modified":"2021-05-14T12:59:20","modified_gmt":"2021-05-14T16:59:20","slug":"i-am-not-who-you-say-i-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=31190","title":{"rendered":"I Am Not Who You Say I Am"},"content":{"rendered":"

My twin sister Alita<\/a> and I have a credit problem: not because we\u2019ve defaulted on loans or skipped bills, but because the US credit rating agencies can\u2019t seem to tell us apart. Sometimes they associate her name with my social security number, sometimes it\u2019s the other way around \u2014 and sometimes we both show up under the same SSN.<\/p>\n

When I applied to work at The Verge, my background check gave my name as Alita Clark; Mitchell Clark was listed as an alias. Over and over, Alita and I have been rejected for credit cards, despite both having good credit. I was rejected for a car loan by a bank that I\u2019ve used for years \u2014 despite having enough cash to immediately pay off the loan. Neither of us has had issues with getting access to housing, but it\u2019s hard to feel sure it won\u2019t happen in the future. The problem isn\u2019t banks or lenders but the credit system itself, a vast and invisible information network with little incentive to correct even the simplest of problems.<\/p>\n

...<\/p>\n

In 2019, I applied for Apple\u2019s new credit card, wanting to try it as soon as it came out. My application was denied, and after some digging, I realized it was likely being handled by TransUnion. I requested a report from them and got back a reply addressed to, you guessed it, Alita Clark. After months of working to fix the errors in my reports, they had crept back in \u2014 and someone else\u2019s mistake was keeping me from getting Apple\u2019s shiny new credit card.<\/p>\n

My sister and I both filed complaints with the CFPB, and for a while, the situation seemed to be fixed. I finally got my Apple Card and was even able to access my credit report through online channels again. But it was only a matter of time before entropy slipped back in. I was rejected for a car loan late last year, and today I\u2019m back to not being able to access my TransUnion or Equifax reports online. If I ever want to get a mortgage, I\u2019ll likely have to get a lawyer involved.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What a country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My twin sister Alita and I have a credit problem: not because we\u2019ve defaulted on loans or skipped bills, but because the US credit rating agencies can\u2019t seem to tell us apart. Sometimes they associate her name with my social security number, sometimes it\u2019s the other way around \u2014 and sometimes we both show up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31191,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31190\/revisions\/31191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}