Experian kills off another consumer

What's with these credit bureaus?  One of the many recurring problems with the credit bureaus is that they often report consumers as deceased when they are very much still alive.  But don't let a little thing like a pulse contradict a credit bureau's pronouncement of death!  Here's a quote from an article about yet another "deceased" consumer with a heart beat -

"They said, 'I'm really sorry, but we can't process this loan any further because we have a report declaring you deceased," Julie Kerr recalled.


No one was more surprised to hear the report of Julie's mother's death than Julie's mother herself, Ann Howe of Bothel, Washington.

"I just said, 'What? What are they talking about?' I said, 'I'm certainly alive. My doctor knows I'm alive," Howe said.

Howe indeed is alive and well, but she could not get anybody to believe her even though she goes into Bank of America all the time.

"Everybody knows my mom there," said Kerr. "My mom's this happy-go-lucky chatterbox."

"Bank of America knew that I was coming in there. I have automatic deposits that go in there," Howe said.

However, seeing was not believing. So, Howe sent an official notarized letter to Bank of America saying, "The report of my demise is inaccurate information."

"We understand she's alive. We understand it's a mistake, but because we can't get a credit score from Experian, there's nothing we can do," Kerr said.

SO even though the lender knew this "happy-go-lucky chatterbox" was alive, they believed Experian's claim she was dead over the lady's own beating heart.  And, of course, Experian refused to fix the problem, thereby violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which is a pretty common occurrence at Experian. 

Kerr was finally able to resurrect her mother after a local TV station got involved and put some heat on the situation.  Good for the tv stations, but, really folks, it shouldn't take the threat of bad press to get a simple to fix error fixed.  Guess she should have use the magic words "its only a flesh wound"!

Here's a link to the full article - http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=7270195