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Busy, busy, and a question

June 22nd, 2015 at 09:48 pm

The last couple of weeks have been very busy. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a vow renewal and then took a trip to Door County as part of our anniversary celebration and our vacation.

Before we left, I received an official notice from the city claiming I had a weed violation on a house I do not own. It belonged to a late half brother...someone I did not associate with.I called the day I received the notice and was told she would check into it. I called back two days later, and she said she would check into it. It has taken many phone calls and gnashing of teeth to try and get this figured out. The first person who was in charge of the "research" claimed the property was my problem because my name was on the water bill. That scared me because I should not have been on the water bill. I called the city about that, and that wasn't true. Then I was told my name was on the deed. I called the supervisor of assessments, and no, that wasn't the case either. So I called the original person back and was told that the house was deeded to me due to a will. I asked how to check on that, and there was a will, but it was my father's, not the half brother's. They had similar names, but my father died before this house was purchased. This person said she would check into it. This was a mix up because of the similarity of the names. Well, over a week later, she apparently was too busy and figured I was trying to get out of paying, because I receive a registered letter from the city claiming I owe them money and will have to go to court. I have a friend who works for the city in a different department so I asked him to whom I should speak. He gave me the name of the city attorney. I spoke with him this morning and he understands the mix up and said he would dismiss it. Talk about stress! I hope this is the end of it. I understand the city wants the property taken care of, but this is an issue of the late half-brother's family. He has full siblings and three children.

Anyway, I pulled up one of my credit reports wondering if my name had been used for different accounts, and then wondered if I should be looking into Lifelock. Anyone have anything to say yay or nay?

5 Responses to “Busy, busy, and a question”

  1. Carol Says:
    1435015256

    Lots of information about "freezing your credit" on the financial blog "Bogelheads.org." Some of the participants were affected by the hack of government personnel files.

  2. creditcardfree Says:
    1435021564

    It sounds like this is a case of getting in touch with the wrong next of kin, rather than stolen identity. However if you would feel better you can get a service to track your credit. You might also try Credit Karma or Credit Sesame as those are free and would likely notify you if new credit were opened in your name.

  3. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1435021882

    What a mess. I think I would at the very least pull all of my credit reports and check them carefully.

  4. CB in the City Says:
    1435065426

    I agree with CCF. It is a bureaucratic mess-up, not deliberate identity theft. In my line of work I do similar research, trying to find family connections, children of donors, etc. It can be pretty sticky when there are similar names. Still, it's no excuse. They can be more thorough in their research. It can be done. Someone is being lazy.

  5. rob62521 Says:
    1435093987

    Thanks, everyone!

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