Hello!
I've changed *all* of my financial information to be under the correct name many years ago. I decided to look at my credit reports since I will be applying for new employment soon. Experian and Transunion both have my correct name, but Equifax has:
Name: Correct Name
AKA / Alias: Name assigned to me by my parents when I was born
I looked up the alias information on Equifax online, and it says:
"How long does Alias information stay on my file?
Forever."
I haven't used the "alias" in over ten years, and I'd like to have it removed so that I don't run into any problems looking for work, or mortages/etc in the future.
When I went to dispute it, it previously said that it can't be disputed unless I have in fact never used the wrong name, which unfortunately I had to in order to get student loans back when I was still transitioning. I can't find that information about disputing it now (it's been about a month since I looked into this), but I have absolutely no idea how I should approach this. I'm afraid that if I just say "hey, I used that name years ago, but I'm trans and I already changed all of my accounts over, take it off so it doesn't out me!", I might get somebody who would see my admitting that I used that name as "proof" that it's an alias, and somehow making it more difficult for me to remove and marking it as "verified" or something, particularly if I end up with somebody transphobic on the phone.
Has anyone gotten this fixed before in the United States? Are there any forms or anything that I should be using? Is there any danger in providing Equifax with name change forms/etc, that they might decide that the previous name is my "real" name and botch up my credit report even more?
Sorry if this sounds a bit paranoid, but I went through *massive* headaches with the IRS over similar problems, so I'm still somewhat frazzled from that. I'm not "out" to the world at large, and am really hoping there's some kind of "trans exemption" to get the alias information removed. Apparently there is in the UK, but I'm living in the US...
Thank you for any help you can offer
