Editorial: Compounding identity theft

Saturday, Jan. 6, 2007 | 6:59 a.m.

T his past summer a team of Boston Globe reporters wrote about the heavy-handed tactics of debt collectors. Among the readers who responded to the series of articles were dozens who complained that they were victims of a data error on their credit reports or of identity theft. In addition to being hounded by debt collectors, they were finding it impossible to clear their names.

A Globe reporter who investigated their complaints found herself with a jarring follow-up story, focusing on the "glacial and ineffectual response of the three giant keepers of consumer credit records - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion - to any errors in their files, even those that appear to result from fraud."

One Massachusetts man interviewed by the Globe had been battling for five years to clear his credit because a man in Florida with the same name had a habit of bouncing checks and evading creditors. This left the Massachusetts man unable to get a mortgage, rent an apartment in his own name or even buy an engagement ring for his fiancee without his father's help, the Globe reported.

Another victim, whose credit was shot because his Social Security number was used to obtain credit cards by a man with a similar name, told the newspaper he had been fighting to restore his family's financial life for six years. The paper reported that among the man's frustrations was a denial recently when he applied for a student loan for his daughter.

That credit bureaus do not have a quick and effective way of restoring the financial lives of innocent people in this age of identity theft is outrageous. Federal regulations governing credit bureaus should spell out clear and speedy procedures to take when people report that they have been victimized.