Unknown phone number added to my credit report

M8Rxmjsik wrote: ↑ You're asking different questions here.

1. Fraud/identity theft

If someone has your personal info and is trying to open credit cards in your name, that is a problem. See which company accessing your credit report and give them a call (the phone number will be on the inquiry). If someone is trying to get credit in your name, call the police and file a fraud report (the cops probably won't do anything, but the report is still useful).

Contact the credit issuer and inform them of the fraud. Send them a copy of the police report. You can also ask for a fraud alert to be added to your credit report.

2. Errors by credit bureaus

Credit bureaus often make mistakes, they often put information for other people on your credit report because they are lazy and don't care.

If this is the case, fill out the dispute form from the credit bureau and send it in by registered mail. Credit bureaus often lose your correspondence so make copies and keep the proof of delivery by registered mail.

3. Reducing your credit score

It is true that each hard credit inquiry will reduce your credit score, but only up to a point. Your score will not go to zero (I think the lowest possible is 300 or so). The number of credit inquiries is only part of your score, so even with hundreds of inquiries you could still have a reasonable score.

4. Someone getting your credit report without authorization

With some exceptions, the company inquiring about your credit report needs your authorization to do so. If you didn't authorize the inquiry and it isn't one of the exceptions, call the police and file a report (it is against the law to access a credit report without authorization or an exception, but I haven't read of anyone being prosecuted IANAL).

The section noted requires a little bit of clarification. Just about any data issue on a credit file is typically from garbage in / garbage out rather than an issue with the Credit Bureau itself because of how the system works.

Your personal data comes into the credit bureau from creditors when they either report their account performance data or when they make an inquiry. Anything supplied to the credit bureau from the member (creditor) adds to the existing data or overwrites it. The members are expected to provide accurate data and when they supply say a new phone number it’s considered to be more current and accurate compared to what is there already, so this is why/how new data overwrites what was on file before the inquiry or performance data feed.

In the OP’s case, the new and unknown number was placed on the file by a creditor. The creditor supplied the number, but they either have it incorrect in their system due to some kind of error on the creditor’s side in the creditor’s systems - or - they accepted a phone number change from someone probably impersonating the OP. They may not have done sufficient due diligence before accepting the change, or, the impersonator is pretty good at impersonating.

The phone number being changed is either the first step in a take-over attempt, or the impersonator has already created a new account in OP’s name, or the impersonator has already taken over OP’s account and made the change online within the account (and creditor trusted the info and it updated credit bureau).

The only aspect of personal data that the credit bureau is responsible for is to ensure that there is only 1 instance of “Jagmeet Singh” by combining the performance data that comes in from Jagmeet Singh’s BMO credit card + Jagmeet Singh’s Honda Finance account, etc. otherwise there would never be a consolidated view of Jagmeet Singh’s credit file and scoring wouldn’t be accurate.

Otherwise, all personal data and data changes are sourced solely from members supplying the data and/or making inquiries. So any lax security allowing bad data in is on the members, and any bad data from being sloppy or lazy is also on the member(s) that supplied the data.

letmesee wrote: ↑ I was notified by credit karma that a new phone number and a hard inquiry were added to my credit report.

I have already filed a dispute but am concerned that the fraudster can continue hurting my credit.

What are my options? How can I be proactive about this instead of just receiving 'alerts'?

Please help. Thanks!

You need to understand if the inquiry and updated data came from a creditor that you already deal with, or from a net new creditor that you just started dealing with but got your number wrong, or if it’s a net new creditor that you have never dealt with before.

The first two can be worked out by contacting your creditor to fix their data and by pressing the bureau to make sure them member does so. The last case is a potential fraud where a new account is in the process of being created by someone impersonating you or is a legit account for someone with a same/similar name that the creditor has incorrectly recorded in their database and it’s crossed over to your file.

letmesee wrote: ↑ I was notified by credit karma that a new phone number and a hard inquiry were added to my credit report.

I have already filed a dispute but am concerned that the fraudster can continue hurting my credit.

What are my options? How can I be proactive about this instead of just receiving 'alerts'?

Please help. Thanks!

You need to understand if the inquiry and updated data came from a creditor that you already deal with, or from a net new creditor that you just started dealing with but got your number wrong, or if it’s a net new creditor that you have never dealt with before.

The first two can be worked out by contacting your creditor to fix their data and by pressing the bureau to make sure them member does so. The last case is a potential fraud where a new account is in the process of being created by someone impersonating you or is a legit account for someone with a same/similar name that the creditor has incorrectly recorded in their database and it’s crossed over to your file.

M8Rxmjsik wrote: ↑ And who came up with this system?

Credit bureaus need to do a better job of filtering out garbage.

The member making the inquiry or updating performance data has a direct relationship with their client. If the member were more careful and responsible with their clients' data then there'd be no issue with garbage data in a file. The bureau itself has zero relationship with borrowers so how are they supposed to know good data from bad data?

In OP's case, the new unknown phone number was provided a member. How is the bureau to know if it was a legit new number OP got or a fraud? The members need to do a better job at preventing fraud and being more accurate with the data that goes into their systems.