Advice about Son's Judgment on Father's Credit Report
My brother has a judgment against him which was put on my Dad's credit report as they have the same name. How do I fix this?
My father and my brother have the same name. My brother has a credit card that wasn't paid and had a judgment against him. It was put on my Dad's credit report in error. How can he get this taken care of?
Children named after a parent often find their namesake parent’s credit information is reported incorrectly on their credit reports. It is easy to see why this error occurs; not only do these consumers share a very similar name (often with the only difference being a "Sr." or "Jr."), but they often live in close proximity to each other, sometimes even sharing the same address. Judgments can be especially problematic because they do not include the debtor’s Social Security Number in the file information for privacy reasons (judgments are public records, after all).
Thankfully, federal law provides a procedure for consumers to have inaccurate information removed from their credit profile. Your father needs to dispute the judgment appearing on his credit report with each of the three major U.S. credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
See the Federal Trade Commission document FTC Facts for Consumers: How to Dispute Credit Report Errors for more information.
I encourage consumers to carefully review their credit reports from each of the credit bureaus at least once per year to make sure that all of the information appearing on the reports is accurate. Credit reports are notoriously inaccurate, and close scrutiny is required on your part to make sure that your credit report is current and accurate. To learn more about credit, credit scoring, and credit reports, I encourage you to visit the Bills.com credit information page.
I wish your father the best of luck in resolving this error, and hope that the information I have provided helps him Find. Learn. Save.
Best,
Bill