Sounds kinda similar to a former coworker ~2 decades ago. Tried to get a mortgage, rejected, he obtained his credit file...and ~80% of the stuff in "his" credit report was for similar-named people (mostly living in the same part of the U.S.). Report said that he had purchased a house at age 5, based on the well-paid job he got at Ford Motor Co. at age 4, etc., etc.

It's pretty much impossible to get your free annual credit report these days. It used to be relatively painless, but now you get slammed with ads for credit monitoring or whatever useless products. Or, the website just doesn't work, redirect to a page telling you to send a letter to some rando PO box.

I used to get my free credit report every year, but I stopped, which I'm sure is exactly what these scumbags want.

Which website (AnnualCreditReport.com? or the three bureaux' own sites? or some other third-party website (which?)) and what do you mean "the website" just doesn't work? Be aware there are tons of unaffiliated copycat websites claiming to be the official one and just want to serve you ads; don't use them.

IME AnnualCreditReport.com was easy-to-use and never sends ads. It sounds like you were tricked into using something else. If you genuinely had an issue with AnnualCreditReport.com (unlikely), please do tell the FTC: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/free-credit-reports

Have you tried this site? https://www.annualcreditreport.com

LexisNexis Risk reported two inaccurate judgements in my risk report, preventing me from getting a mortgage in my name for almost a decade. It was finally settled in a class action, and I received a check for $625. I wish a terrible time to the individuals who were directly involved at LexisNexis, because someone, somewhere decided to just not care about their data hygiene because there was no incentive to.

https://www.lienandjudgmentdisputes.com/lang/en/

I mean that's really what it comes down to, isn't it? The incentives. Why should any of them care? They make thousands of errors with regularity that cause millions of consumers endless hours of agony trying to get jobs, trying to buy homes, trying to buy cars, but like, we can't not use them. In my entire long life I have never once done business with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Yet each of them have an entire drawer's worth of data on me, all of which is stored incredibly insecurely, is rife with errors, and the only time I really hear from them is when they've once again screwed something up and have dropped it in my lap like a cat showing up with a dead bird: "Heads up, you gotta handle this."

Like, name one thing they actually do right. Literally anything. I challenge anyone who reads this to name a single bad thing that would happen if all these leech companies got Thanos-snapped out of the universe tomorrow.

Banks would have to find an alternative. And that's a vacuum which could be filled with worse actors. I keep close tabs with all 3 bureaus because that's the reality we live in.

> Banks would have to find an alternative.

We might have worse actors or arbitrary decisions or more expensive loans. Or, why not, all three!

That's awful. I assume you didn't remove yourself from the class action, because you didn't have or want to invest the time and resources into suing them yourself? $625 is a laughable amount of money for the amount of bullshit they put you through.

Your assumption is correct. Time is non renewable and I instead focus on higher leverage efforts, such as donating my time to Congressional representatives and federal regulators who craft legislation or attempt enforcement actions (respectively). Do things that scale and all that jazz.

> My nephew is now 20. When he was 5...

So that was 15 years ago when these mortgages were taken out in his name? Placing it between 2007 and 2008.

That's basically right at the inflection point when the housing market had gotten out of control and started crashing down. This was caused because anyone could get a mortgage, regardless of whether they could afford it or who they were. The banks were accused of doing zero due diligence. In some cases no income verification, no identity verification, no job verification, etc.. You could take a mortgage out in your dogs name, and also apparently a 5 year old's name too.

I like to think that the system is better now, but that's probably a fantasy.

To make this worse, they won't even let you apply a credit freeze online until you're eighteen years old.