Oh Good, an Extra Mortgage!

First and foremost, I have to thank femmefrugality for commenting on my blog, which resulted in my checking out her blog, specifically this post.

I've been wanting to check my credit report for awhile - I haven't checked it since I applied for a mortgage almost 3 years ago.  I've been toying around with the idea of replacing my car later this year, which would probably necessitate taking out a small loan.  The above-referenced post was the kick in the pants I needed to actually follow through on checking my credit report.

Well, my credit reports on Experian and TransUnion looked good, but lo and behold, Equifax thought I had not one, but TWO mortgages. Not just two mortgages, but two IDENTICAL mortgages, with two different banks. 

Needless to say, I filed a dispute in no time flat.  As it turns out, nothing nefarious was going on, no one was stealing my identity or anything of that nature.  The bank that holds my mortgage recently merged with another bank under the same parent company, and they forgot to remove the mortgage under the old bank name after they added it under the new name. 

I have to give a LOT of credit to my bank for how quickly they responded to the dispute and how nice and helpful the woman I spoke to was.  I just have to fax them a copy of the credit report with the error and they're going to remove the mortgage with the old information from my Equifax report. 

Moral of the story: Check your credit report regularly.  And DEFINITELY check it if you think you might be taking out a loan in the near future!