A routine personal finance assignment turned into a real-world lesson on credit reporting and identity security for one 20-year-old college student.
After ordering her first free credit report, the student was shocked to discover a credit card account from Citibank that she never opened, according to her recent Reddit post.
The mysterious account, which showed a balance being paid down, raised suspicions, particularly given her father’s prior financial troubles.
She called Citibank, which said it didn’t see a card under her Social Security number. Then, she called her dad, who said, “Uhhhh mayybeeee that’s my card? I really don’t know. Can I call you back?”
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The student took to Reddit to seek advice on what appeared to be either an unauthorized account, or AU, opening or being added as an authorized user without her knowledge.
The community responded with suggestions about steps to take to protect her credit report.
“If it’s an AU then having you removed as an AU would make the history disappear,” one person wrote. “If it’s in your name, then someone committed identity theft and for it to go away you’ll likely need to report that to the police as a first step.”
Another suggested that the student should freeze her credit with the three major credit reporting bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
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“It is easy to do and takes 30 seconds to unfreeze it for a day/week if you need it. You can contact Citibank to remove yourself from any of their cards,” they said.
Still another Reddit poster said the student could determine from her credit report whether the account was opened in her name. For example, if the field on her Equifax report says “Owner,” the account is likely in her name. If not, she’s probably an authorized user.
“You probably don’t want to start with filing a dispute because while that may get it off your credit report it’s likely that the account it’s likely the account itself will still exist and ultimately reported again,” the user wrote.
The student’s case highlights the importance of regularly checking your credit report, as her professor advised. Any unrecognized account could be a sign of a bigger problem.
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If you find an unauthorized account or an error on your report, Experian recommends taking the following steps:
- Contact the creditor: Call the card issuer’s fraud department to ask about the account.
- Review your credit reports: Check all three credit bureaus to see whether other fraudulent accounts were opened.
- Dispute the information: Dispute the fraudulent or incorrect information with the credit bureaus.
- File an identity theft report: If the account was opened in your name, filing a report at IdentityTheft.gov can provide an official document to use when disputing accounts.
- Place a fraud alert or credit freeze on the card: Placing a fraud alert on a card requires businesses to take extra steps to verify identity before issuing new credit and a credit freeze locks access to your credit reports, preventing new accounts from being opened.
The student ended up calling Citi, which confirmed she did not have a card with the bank. Citi also checked her father’s card and determined it did not have authorized users on it.
“The customer service rep filed a dispute to transunion and said it should be fixed by this time next month,” she wrote.
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