coco
23-11-2009, 02:39 PM
[Emphasis by me]
http://news.aol.com/article/credit-agency-tells-ann-howe-shes-dead/779068
Credit Agency to Woman: You're Dead
SEATTLE (Nov. 22) –- A Seattle woman was rejected when she applied to refinance her home, and it wasn’t because she was an unreliable borrower. A credit bureau had listed her as dead, according to KOMO-TV in Seattle.
Ann Howe, 78, had recently suffered the loss of her husband and two health ordeals of her own when the credit ordeal began. She applied for refinancing in hopes of lowering her mortgage payments, but the bank said no when her Experian credit report came back showing her as deceased.
The credit-reporting agency apparently received a false notice from one of her creditors. "[S]omebody made a real ignorant mistake when they told Experian that I was dead," Howe told KOMO. "I mean, that was a terrible blow."
Correcting the mistake was a bureaucratic nightmare, the station said. Howe's daughter in California, Julie Kerr, sent faxes, letters, phone calls, and notarized explanations. Still, the bank refused to refinance her mom's mortgage until Experian listed her as alive.
With the lock on her mother's loan about to expire, Kerr got an idea. She contacted KGO-TV in San Francisco and let the station's news staff step in.
It worked. The mistake was fixed, and Howe got her mortgage readjusted to a better rate. Even so, she's still mad. "Because it was just stupid. And nobody should go through this," she told KOMO.
http://news.aol.com/article/credit-agency-tells-ann-howe-shes-dead/779068
Credit Agency to Woman: You're Dead
SEATTLE (Nov. 22) –- A Seattle woman was rejected when she applied to refinance her home, and it wasn’t because she was an unreliable borrower. A credit bureau had listed her as dead, according to KOMO-TV in Seattle.
Ann Howe, 78, had recently suffered the loss of her husband and two health ordeals of her own when the credit ordeal began. She applied for refinancing in hopes of lowering her mortgage payments, but the bank said no when her Experian credit report came back showing her as deceased.
The credit-reporting agency apparently received a false notice from one of her creditors. "[S]omebody made a real ignorant mistake when they told Experian that I was dead," Howe told KOMO. "I mean, that was a terrible blow."
Correcting the mistake was a bureaucratic nightmare, the station said. Howe's daughter in California, Julie Kerr, sent faxes, letters, phone calls, and notarized explanations. Still, the bank refused to refinance her mom's mortgage until Experian listed her as alive.
With the lock on her mother's loan about to expire, Kerr got an idea. She contacted KGO-TV in San Francisco and let the station's news staff step in.
It worked. The mistake was fixed, and Howe got her mortgage readjusted to a better rate. Even so, she's still mad. "Because it was just stupid. And nobody should go through this," she told KOMO.