What is That on Our Credit Report?

As I discussed over the past week or so, we are purchasing a new home and recently went through the pre-approval process and are now in the actual loan application period (in other words, we filed the application and now everything is up to the bank). We are working towards closing at the end of this month.

Well during the pre-approval, my banker mentioned how my wife’s credit file, after pulling reports from all three of the credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, showed she had a duplicate entry for a student loan each of us knew nothing about.

The bank had alerted us that it just looked like a duplicate entry and there really should not be anything to worry about because it was coming up as delinquent. However, we were completely puzzled from the standpoint we have never had this loan show up on a credit report, and my wife did not know anything about it. Let alone, my wife has been out of school for at least 3 years and we have never received a bill.

So my wife began her investigation skills to get to the bottom of the mystery loan. First she called her school to see if they could tell her anything. After several days of calls, they were finally able to tell her that it was only one loan for $4,000; however, the duplicate entry on the tri-credit report that the bank pulled for the loan was showing it twice. So my banker gladly provided the contact information for the company they used to retrieve all of the reports.

First, before I forget, my wife tells me the company, CBCInnovis, was absolutely terrific to deal with, and in my wife’s opinion had the best customer service of anywhere she has ever dealt business. Well after talking with the agent, she was able to determine that two different agencies were reporting the same loan. The problem was they each labeled it slightly different, causing the duplicate entry. She was quickly able to correct the error so that in the future, it only shows on my wife’s credit file once.

The kicker of the whole thing though is that now we need to start paying this loan. Apparently the loan was in deferment all of these years because of an error on the part of the school billing system. They thought she was still in school. Since I did not even know my wife when she took out the loan, I knew nothing about it. We pay our student loans every month, and I always assumed it covered everything.

So look at us…we try and be honest so that we maintain such great credit files, and end up finding another $4,000 of unknown debt. SUCKS! Now I just have to wait and see what the school does to get us to start paying. I am all for paying debts, but it just stinks that as soon as we take on a larger financial responsibility, we find a mystery loan that gets factored back into the budget. If we had never notified the school, we might never have had to start paying on the loan because it would have continued to keep getting deferred.