Name change with credit companies.

[berkeleybear2015]

Hi people. 

From what I gather, this is the process for changing your name on credit reports and cards. 
1, change your name with all your current credit lenders. 
2, wait a few months(for all lenders to go 2 cycles.)
3, order a credit report from the 3 agencies to make sure they list both of your names on the account.
4, after verifying that all your accounts converted to the new name, send the credit bureaus a copy of your name change confirming your change and try asking them to remove the alias. 
5, Apply to credit in new name in the future. 

Has anyone tried something similar?  What about closed accounts? I am assuming any credit issuer that reports your data to the bureaus, whether the account is open or closed, is required to honor a court ordered name change.  Is this correct?  People who have tried, please share your stories.  My name change degree will be judged on June 26, and 1. I can't wait 2. I hope this goes smoothly. 

[jessical]

I will assume you are in the US, and from your username you probably live a few minutes from me   To change your name with your credit cards (and your bank), you need a court order and a government issued photo ID.  My understanding with credit reporting agencies is that you can contact them after you update your SSN, but you can do nothing after you update the SSN and eventually they will update you named.  I don't think there is any reason to wait.  As soon as you have the new SSN you can apply for credit in your name.

[Sydney_NYC]

Hi people. 

From what I gather, this is the process for changing your name on credit reports and cards. 
1, change your name with all your current credit lenders. 
2, wait a few months(for all lenders to go 2 cycles.)
3, order a credit report from the 3 agencies to make sure they list both of your names on the account.
4, after verifying that all your accounts converted to the new name, send the credit bureaus a copy of your name change confirming your change and try asking them to remove the alias. 
5, Apply to credit in new name in the future. 

Has anyone tried something similar?  What about closed accounts? I am assuming any credit issuer that reports your data to the bureaus, whether the account is open or closed, is required to honor a court ordered name change.  Is this correct?  People who have tried, please share your stories.  My name change degree will be judged on June 26, and 1. I can't wait 2. I hope this goes smoothly. 

Also, how anal are judges about filling out forms correctly?  I just realized I forgot to specify that the number of people under 18 in the petition was 0 on one page where it said "specify", but I stated my birthday and that I was over 18 in the next page.

That sounds about right and is what I did. Of course I needed to give each creditor a copy of my name change court order by Fax or mail. I don't think they will remove the old name though. I believe they will only come off after 7 years after the last thing is report in your old name that is not active any longer (closed accounts). If I'm wrong about the last part please let me know as I would love to get rid of my old name on it. 3 months after I notified all my creditors, my credit report showed the correct name in the Aliases part did have 2 version of my old name. (I used to go by my birth middle name instead of my first name and both were listed as first names.)

I have applied for credit twice under my new name and was approved both times with an issue and opened a new Sprint account with my new name without incident.

[FTMax]

I have been able to update all of mine online by emailing them copies of my new driver's license and court order. The only entity that hasn't accepted the online version so far is FedLoan.

[berkeleybear2015]

Hi everyone again,

Thanks for sharing your experiences.  Based on some articles like this one,
you can call or send in proof to Experian, Transition, and Equifax to get your old aliases removed if no creditors are reporting under that name anymore.  It is number 5 on this article.  Based on other forums though, it is a YMMV deal and some people are not able to get them removed. 
Experian UK has a form on this page
that they say allows you to remove aliases, but the form does not mention removing a name anywhere.  I hope all the credit companies adopt policies that allow removal of aliases soon, because I don't want to be making excuses when my future mortgage people pull up my credit report and I don't want to come out to them.  For everyday life outside of applying for loans and credit, I have bigger issues, like my Facebook feed outing me through tagged photos. 

Mod Edit - Links require prior permission to post.

[Sydney_NYC]

Hi everyone again,

Thanks for sharing your experiences.  Based on some articles like this one,
you can call or send in proof to Experian, Transition, and Equifax to get your old aliases removed if no creditors are reporting under that name anymore.  It is number 5 on this article.  Based on other forums though, it is a YMMV deal and some people are not able to get them removed.  ......

I'm definitely going to write to the reporting agencies and try to get my old name removed.

[tgchar21]

@berkeleybear2015 - In the UK the gender laws allow you to remove a name changed due to a gender transition from your reports. Unfortunately for those in the US the only way to remove a name or alias you had previously used to obtain credit is to hope it falls off over time.