Someone else's credit card account with my email address?

[Midpack]

Or I hope that's the case.

A couple of months ago I got emails from AmEx, Disc & Capital One congratulating me on my new credit cards, asking for more info - I never applied! I contacted all three immediately concerned about phishing or fraud.

It appears AmEx & Disc corrected their records, though I don't know how I can be sure.

However, I've had a dozen more emails from C1. I have contacted their 'fraud' peeps several times by phone and email, they assured me not to worry, but I keep receiving emails on "my" new account. When I call now, they say that can't help me unless I give them my Soc Sec number. I don't want to share it, there shouldn't be any way they'd have it, why give it?

A few days ago I got another email giving a full name (not mine), stating my account ending in XXXX had a balance of ($379). Today I got an email acknowledging my payment of $59. So whoever it is, probably doesn't have good credit. But it is an active account!

Somehow C1 has a new account with my email address, but all the other info appears to be someone else! Why C1 can't fix that is beyond me?

I can unsubscribe to the emails, but I want to be sure there isn't any association with our credit record.

We're going to check our credit record with Experian etc.

Anything else we can/should do?

 

[easysurfer]

That's scary.

Checking your credit report sounds like a good idea. You can get a free one from the 3 reporting agencies once a year.

If something comes up fishy, there's the credit freezing option too.

Since getting my IRS info hacked, I put my credit on lock down with a freeze. Definitely gives me more peace of mind. Recently, when changing mobile providers, when setting up my payment, I was reminded that there is a freeze on my credit. A good thing in my opinion .

 

[jazz4cash]

A few days ago I got another email giving a full name (not mine), stating my account ending in XXXX had a balance of ($379). Today I got an email acknowledging my payment of $59. So whoever it is, probably doesn't have good credit. But it is an active account!

I appreciate your concern. I would would be completely ticked off also, but I wondered if you are drawing this conclusion because they did not pay off the balance? I would think they could well have excellent credit if paying 15% of the balance in a timely fashion (not that it should make you feel any better about the screw-up). Hopefully it is not anything malicious.

 

[OrcasIslandBound]

If I started receiving notices like this, I would run credit reports from one of the three credit agencies. If there was strange activity reported, I would assume identity theft occurred and begin dealing with it. Since our family's records were compromised by OPE, we've had free credit monitoring for the next 3 years. I get email alerts anytime we (or anyone else) takes out a credit card in my name. This has helped us to ignore one credit company that was beginning to call us regularly. Before we had the free service, I used Lastpass 's free credit monitoring. That worked well also, but only warned us when there was a problem. Wouldn't let us see the details without money.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[Tadpole]

Can't C1 contact the person by other-than-email and ask him/her to check the accuracy of the email associated with the account?

 

[Senator]

You should contact C1 directly, and give them your SSN. They can look it up. They deal with that info all the time. They can also close the account.

If you do not want to give up an SSN, I suggest that you just pay the bills when due. They may be affecting your credit, but the bright side, you did not give your SSN to a reputable company.

A credit bureau will not be able to do anything at this point. Odds are, a computer picked up your email as it was the next one in their list.

 

[Senator]

Somehow C1 has a new account with my email address, but all the other info appears to be someone else! Why C1 can't fix that is beyond me?

Because they do not change a customers email address just because an unknown person tells them to.

 

[Aiming_4_55]

As others have mentioned, check your credit reports.

Consider:
Since you are not comfortable providing information, when you call their published customer service number (not when someone calls you), are you able to confirm general information like street name, city, state, last 4 digits of social security number? Any of this seem accurate?

I would also check online to see if accounts are online, if they are using your email address, you may be able to use "forgot User ID" or "forgot password" to find out a few other tidbits of information.

Sounds like they performed an upgraded and screwed up data quality, using the wrong column or row, i.e. email address.

Credit lock could be an option too. If there is fraud, be sure to file a police report to document timing. Good luck.

 

[walkinwood]

I have an email address - that I don't use much - with just my first initial and last name. I get these kinds of messages often - people just don't seem to know what their email address is!

I get invites to parties, confirmations of purchases, messages from financial institutions. After a while I gave up trying to correct the issue and now just junk them.

My everyday email now has my full first and last name. And I don't have that problem on that address.

 

[walkinwood]

Because they do not change a customers email address just because an unknown person tells them to.

And a good thing too!

 

[GrayHare]

If you can find a way to make it C1's liability it has a better chance of being corrected, or at least not costing you anything. A certified letter notifying C1 might help.

 

[Ronnieboy]

It seems like it was a fat finger mistake on the actual credit card owners application? They seem to be acknowledging the account and even paying on it, so maybe an oversight on their part.
I can only imagine the number of email addresses that are the same as mine but off by one character.
What I don't understand would be why the real owner isn't questioning why they aren't getting their emails from C1

 

[GrayHare]

What I don't understand would be why the real owner isn't questioning why they aren't getting their emails from C1

The real owner very well may be. Since C1 is earning money in this process it has no reason to care.

 

[Papa bear]

I have an email address - that I don't use much - with just my first initial and last name. I get these kinds of messages often - people just don't seem to know what their email address is!

I get invites to parties, confirmations of purchases, messages from financial institutions. After a while I gave up trying to correct the issue and now just junk them.

My everyday email now has my full first and last name. And I don't have that problem on that address.

+1

I get this all time in an almost exact same email situation. Unsubscribe usually works, but sometimes it's from another country and I keep getting those.

You can also try to login to their account with your email address. "Forget your password" often just sends a new one to your email address. I did that with Expedia and called the lady - she had entered all her contact info. She had no idea that she wasn't using her own email address...

 

[Ronnieboy]

The real owner very well may be. Since C1 is earning money in this process it has no reason to care.

True, as far as C1 is concerned, but if I was the owner of the account I would be logging in and double checking everything is correct under 'my account' info on the website.
Maybe that is too much common sense

 

[Bestwifeever]

True, as far as C1 is concerned, but if I was the owner of the account I would be logging in and double checking everything is correct under 'my account' info on the website.
Maybe that is too much common sense

I've never done that but then my common-sense bar is pretty low

It does sound like a mistake on the applicant's part--maybe they used gmail.com instead of yahoo.com, for example. If the OP doesn't want to give SS number to Capital One then it probably will never be resolved. I wouldn't think the email address alone would tie the two people's credit ratings together but who knows.

I think mixed-up credit cards was the plot of a "Friends" episode.

 

[lemming]

This seems like a crossed wire with a email address not a fraudulent credit scam. I would give the cc company the email address and tell them it should not be associated with the account. Your social security number won't bring up anything since you don't have an account with them.
Are you getting other emails from that person or worse are they getting your emails?

 

[MichaelB]

Somehow C1 has a new account with my email address, but all the other info appears to be someone else! Why C1 can't fix that is beyond me?

I can unsubscribe to the emails, but I want to be sure there isn't any association with our credit record.

We're going to check our credit record with Experian etc.

Anything else we can/should do?

The one incredibly important thing you should do is ...chill.

You check your credit report to see if a new credit account was opened. Probably not, because someone doing identity theft isn't going to use your email address to let you know. Still, check to rule it out. Then send the company an email, unsubscribe and forget about it.

This happened to me, with a PayPal account and lots of other subscriptions. PayPal won't unsubscribe me and even sent me a rude response to my effort to let them know, so I mailed them a physical letter, called them idiots, and now all the email goes to my spam filter.

 

[braumeister]

The one incredibly important thing you should do is ...chill.

Agreed. While annoying, it's not that uncommon.

I routinely get emails that are clearly meant for others, two in particular with different email addresses that are close to mine but not identical. In one case, the other's email uses a different spelling of a common word than I use, and people who don't know him well assume he uses my spelling. The other one simply mistypes his own email address when buying things online.

I have tracked both of these individuals down and explained the situation to them, but neither one cares if I get a small percentage of the email addressed to them. So I don't care either, and I simply delete them.

 

[rodi]

I get mail for the following:

- An active member of the PTA for Coe Elementary in Seattle. (I have emailed the school and the PTA president - but I'm on some list they haven't figured out.) I'm sure the real PTA member wonders why she isn't getting important email.s

- Someone who went to a private liberal arts university named Kenneth. Again, I've tried to unsubscribe. Now I just spam those.

- A girl on a college volleyball team. Multiple emails to the coach of the team to have him correct his team email list. It turns out she was missing practices because she wasn't getting the emails.

Folks mistype email addresses all the time... The capital one case sounds like a situation of this - it's not your account, not your credit, so I wouldn't worry about it. The amex and discover card stuff sounds like it's resolved.

 

[Ronnieboy]

I've never done that but then my common-sense bar is pretty low

It does sound like a mistake on the applicant's part--maybe they used gmail.com instead of yahoo.com, for example. If the OP doesn't want to give SS number to Capital One then it probably will never be resolved.

Ha! I don't think so....if you had applied for a CC and put down your email address for account alerts, statement notification, etc. and after a month or two (the OP said there was a payment made) of not receiving any emails I am sure you would check your account online and see if everything was correct

 

[Bestwifeever]

No--I still get paper bills for almost everything (I told you the bar was low --if I get hit by a bus DH would easily be able to take over until he set up his own system involving an abacus and paper checks sent by snail mail--but that's another low-bar topic) and although I do pay online, not all accounts also email me that a payment is due. I wouldn't notice the absence of an email and haven't ever checked to see that my contact information is accurate. And if I did feel like there were emails I wasn't getting, I would just ask Midpack (the OP) if he had received them .

 

[Midpack]

Can't C1 contact the person by other-than-email and ask him/her to check the accuracy of the email associated with the account?

That's what I was hoping for, but not so far.

Since you are not comfortable providing information, when you call their published customer service number (not when someone calls you), are you able to confirm general information like street name, city, state, last 4 digits of social security number? Any of this seem accurate?

I just don't want to provide my Soc Sec #, but they won't even look at the acct without me disclosing same. They won't share any info on the acct, and I wouldn't expect them to.

Because they do not change a customers email address just because an unknown person tells them to.

I haven't asked them to change the email address, I have no idea what the actual cardholders email address is. I have told them the one they've associated with cardholder name (not mine) ending in XXXX is incorrect. I would think C1 would want the cardholders correct email address, and I was hoping they would contact the cardholder to verify email address, and presumably correct it. Seems reasonable to me, evidently not...

 

[Tadpole]

Midpack, the last 4 digits of your SS should be sufficient for them to identify if the account owner is likely using the same SS as your own. Will they accept just the 4 numbers? The likelihood that the last 4 would be identical is very small unless it were intentional. Having confirmed that they don't have identity theft problems, C1 should be grateful you reported the problem and fix it.

 

[donheff]

I wouldn't be so paranoid about releasing my SSN to the CC fraud department. SSNs are floating around all over the place and a fraud department is not a likely culprit for misusing it. It certainly seems worth confirming that the account you are seeing isn't some sort of identity theft actually using your SSN. Crooks do stupid things - accidentally putting a real email address into the profile is not out of the question.

Also, have you considered freezing your credit? That prevents anyone from opening a new line of credit in your name. I did it about ten years ago and sleep easier.