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Mixed Credit Reports - It does happen
A mixed credit report or mixed credit file is when 2 peoples credit information are mixed into the same file. As you can imagine this doesn't sound like a good thing. It happens because of the way credit data is stored and retrieved by the big 3 credit bureaus. We would like to think that the credit reporting agencies keep a single file on each consumer. However, in reality the data is stored in their databases as single pieces of information from each creditor. It is not grouped in a file by consumer until a potential creditor requests a credit report. Credit reports are generated on the fly when they are requested. I'm guessing this is because it's easier to manage the vast amounts of data in this manner (over 200 millions consumers). It's also been speculated that it's done this way to increase the chances that a file will be returned when a creditor requests it. How does the mixing happen? Mixed credit reports happen because of the "loose" nature of the computer algorithms that compile them. To pull a credit report the computer does not always need a social security number. A SSN should be the "primary key" in the database and always used. However, this is not the case. When you request your own credit report you are required to supply many pieces of identifying information that only you know. This is to insure that no unauthorized person can view your credit report. Because of this the report that you see may be different than the report pulled by a creditor. Creditors have much more "loose" rules when pulling reports. They can supply very little information such as just full name and address, without SSN. This creates the possibility that a report given to them will have more or less information that the report given to you. If two people in the same geographic area have similar names and their social security numbers are close enough a mixed file can happen. Here are some scary facts about the algorithms used to pull credit reports.
A conflict of interest? The problem is that it may be hard to discover what's going on. When you pull your own report you don't see any errors because of the extensive personal data you have provided. The big 3 credit reporting agencies must be very careful to show only your personal data to you for privacy reasons. However when showing reports to creditors they are reluctant to "leave out" any information that would help make a credit decision. See Also:
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