Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Contrast.
I am fit to be tied, and not in a fun way either. I am so freaking pissed.
Instead of doing anything fun tonight, I decide to wrap up one last project and check on my tax refund…still MIA. Meanwhile, I download my 2006 edition of my tax software while I’m waiting and see right away that I’ve overpaid for 2006 and I’ll want to get my taxes done as soon as possible this year. No waiting to file an extension because I’m too busy.
In the middle of that, I get some idiot teenagers who want to play peeping tom and bang on my windows. Not a good idea when I’m doing taxes. The police are already ahead of me by the time I lose the boys in the dark. I don’t chase anybody with a sword this time, though. Or my skull staff. I’m annoyed but okay.
But while I’m in the taxing mood, I might as well make sure the Discover Card folks, whom I seldom use but like to have handy for emergencies, didn’t mess up my Damned Near Perfect Credit Score I’ve worked so hard to have. Last year, Discover had a computer glitch that canceled a payment and billed me a late fee. I gave them evidence to the contrary and got it reversed, with their apologies. Six months later, the same thing happened again and they couldn’t explain but they fixed it again, with more apologies. I wanted to make sure it hadn’t messed up my score—and I wanted to see how much paying off my roof back in the mid-autumn had caused my score to go up, since the roof purchase had caused a small drop.
I am shocked to find that my Damned Near Perfect Credit Score had dropped significantly and even more shocked to see the amount of debt listed. I pay off my credit cards every month. I have a mortgage that’s significantly less than my home’s value. I have a $200 a month car payment at too good a rate to pay off and it’s almost done. I have no other debt and none from my marriage. This is not my stuff. And paying off the roof blipped it up only a point or two. WTF????
I go to order my credit report online, give my info and pay for the report because I’m not waiting for the freebie and it’s a weekend and I want it now. After I’ve paid, I can’t get access to it because I can’t give them the proper info to prove who I am…because they’re not accepting the name of my employer for the last 19 years, 9 months, and 27 days as mine and they’re not accepting my home address where I’ve been since 17 October 1993 as mine. No. The addresses I have a choice of are ones where my ex has lived since he moved out. They’ve merged his info—and who knows what else or who else’s—with mine. I can’t even get into my online credit report because it has his info instead of mine.
Between this and my insurance company sending him my privacy act info last month and not being able to explain why or how to me, something’s really effed up. And I’m also listed online in a several people-finder places as being at his address when I’ve never even crossed the threshold.
And of course, it’s a Friday night on a long weekend and there’s nothing I can do until Tuesday but sit here and scream at my credit score blinking on the computer.
It’s a good thing I’ll be playing with the chainsaw tomorrow.
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