Same Name Crisis - Credit Issue

My father and I share first, middle, and last name. The only difference is the suffix, I am the second ( II ). Unfortunately my father has terrible credit thanks to my mom. She is an impulse shopper and over the years has collected a mountain of debt andlate payments that has unfortunately has ravaged his and her credit scores. I am 21 years old and applied for my first credit card last week. I took out a car loan to help establish credit ( small loan about 30% the total value of the car) two years ago. It is paid off and I had one late payment during the course of the loan (33 days late, shows up as a 30 day late payment on my credit report). The big problem though is the insistence by the big 3 reporting agency's that I have applied for multiple forms of "credit" over the past year, my main bank account is not listed, I am continuously asked questions if I have a mortgage out, and It says I have a lot of debt. All this, plus the stuff I am sure is not showing, has caused me to believe my fathers credit reportings are also being reported my credit report. I was denied my credit card and this has caused me to wonder. Why can 18 year olds walk into my workplace, (Sears) apply for a sears card and get approved, but I cannot? I applied for 2 cards after getting denied, mostly out of frustration...

Sears Card, Chase Card, and Citi Card.. Denied by all.

What should I do? Is it safe to assume I am a victim of my parents bad spending habits? This has happened to my cousin as well, and he is still fighting the repricutions of my uncle and aunts bad spending habits as well.

Banks I use that are not being reported...

ING Direct Checking and Saving
TD Bank Checking ( to link to my ING account)

Pardox - checking accounts are not reported to the credit reporting agencies so they are NOT included in your credit report. This means that this information is not used to determine your credit scores or credit approvals.

Before you assume that your credit report is being mixed with your fathers data, I would first verify that this is actually the case. Order a copy of your credit reports and find out exactly what is being reported in your credit report. While it's quite possible that your fathers credit information is being reported in your credit report, it's also possible that you're being declined because you don't have any credit at all.

First step, go to www.annualcreditreport.com and order all three copies of your credit reports from each of the three bureaus. You're entitled to one free copy every 12 months and this is the only site where they are really 'free'. If you need to order more copies before the year is up, you'll have to pay for them.

Once you have the reports go through them and dispute whatever is there that does not belong to you.

Second step, for help on how to go about establishing credit when you have none, read this article: Starting From Scratch

Thank you for your time dtempleton,

I should have mentioned that I have obtained copies of my credit report from Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union. On the Experian one and TransUnion I have noticed a substantially large income to debt ratio. While my income is not large, I dont remember having $300,000 in debt. In addition it states multiple attempts at applying for credit, which should not be the case. What do you think about paying for my credit score? Should I consider doing it?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 09/11/2009

Hmm, I think you may be confusing income ratio with your debt. Your credit reports don't include your income so you're probably talking about debt ratio which is calculates how much debt you're carrying in comparison to your available credit limits. Often called revolving utilization or debt-to-limit ratio.

Are the accounts that show the debt yours or your fathers? Are you an authorized user or is his information being included in your report? The inquiries hurt but only account for about 10% of the score, while the debt category accounts for 35% so I'd focus on that first.

Before paying for your score, I would get the information that's incorrect updated. If the data isn't accurate, then your score isn't going to be accurate either.

Having said all this, if the information in your credit report IS accurate, then yes, order your FICO scores. That will at least tell you what your scores are and what you need to do in order to improve!

I would add that it is very important for you to start a paper trail. Keep printed copies of any credit reports you order in a file. If you dispute items that belong to your father, keep a copy of your disputes. I suspect you may run into this credit mix-up problem for some time, so you'll want to make sure you have documentation showing what you have done to correct any mistakes. Keep this file indefinitely.