Triad of Terror

Index

21.Apr.2004

We’re moving. I’d like to say I’m happy about this—and on some level I am. On another level I’m ready to bite the head off a live chicken, or a person from one of the three credit reporting bureaus. A live chicken would be easier to locate, however.

You see, a couple of years ago, my husband and I were the victims of identity theft. Someone purchased over five thousand dollars worth of Dell computers and apparently made a few dozen Sprint PCS phone calls to Thailand that cost the equivalent of what those people from Nigeria keep emailing me about.

Now comes the fun part. The part where we (the victims) try to get these fraudulent charges removed from our credit history in time to close on our new house. If we are unable to do this, then the lender says we must pay these accounts in full. I’d rather play naked twister with a cactus, it would be more fun.

Attempting to get these charges removed from our record appears to require the blood sacrifice of a virgin, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. It also requires that I spend a minimum of seven hours a day on the telephone in a button pushing frenzy, trying to get through the maze of mechanical voices in order to find a living, breathing human being. This is not an easy thing to accomplish.

When I was finally able to reach a live person, I was so overcome with emotion that she thought my tears of joy were the sounds of a heavy breather and she hung up on me. Five hours later, after I’d calmed down and eaten my allotted Xanex for the day, I again got through to a human being.

I was sure this was a real person.

I swear I am not making up what she said next.

She then gave me another lovely 1-800 number to add to the growing collection of numbers I had already called. It was a number I had previously phoned. I’d called that number the day before, and sprained my button-pushing finger over the course of the next five hours in a fruitless attempt to navigate my way to a live person.

Transunion, Experian, and Equifax, the three major credit reporting companies, or as I refer to them, the Triad of Terror, are holding me hostage. Now, normally I’d enjoy that if it involved being…well, lets just say that it’s not high on my list of fantasies.

Fantasies would include things like chocolate, whipping cream and a white sandy beach somewhere. Oh wait…that’s another topic. Where was I? Oh yes, biting heads off of live chickens and/or playing naked twister with a cactus.

We have less than five days before we are supposed to take possession of our new home. If the Triad of Terror does not release us from our bondage, I fear we will be living out of our U-haul truck, begging for money on street corners. The only good thing is that because we’ve been boxing up our entire world for the past month, we have a plethora of cardboard on which to write our begging signs.

I wonder if we can bring in enough money to pay off the thief’s debts…..

Index

editor's note: due to stoopid people who can't behave in public (ie, spammers) we have had to turn off the comment feature on our older columns. We'll try waiting a while and then turning it back on to see if they get bored and go away. In the mean time, we will manually add any REAL comments if you email them to us. The link is below.

Sorry to hear about your nightmare! I'm glad you can take such an irritating life experience and make me laugh so hard! I just about fell off my chair! Hope everything worked out and you aren't panhandling with your kids and living in the Uhaul!
Jeri Lynn
Shoreline, WA USA -

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