My squeaky wheel story
Posted on Feb 26, 2015 at 12:30AM
While cleaning up the still-too-big pile of boxes from our move a year and a half ago, I ran across a few funny emails that I had printed. I had thought they were lost when I messed up and let my old emails get irreparably deleted a few years back, so I was very happy to see them again.
The scenario is as follows:
I had somehow been made aware of an erroneous entry on my credit report. I don't remember exactly how this happend, but I had gone to the Transunion website and followed whatever procedure it indicated was required to clear up the matter. The website said they'd take care of it within 30 days. I never heard from them and, frankly, my credit report wasn't (and still isn't...soo glad my wife thinks differently about such things) first and foremost on my mind, so I didn't think about it again until...
I applied for credit to buy a shiny red garden tractor and was told that I would not qualify because of this apparently unhandled and bogus blemish on my credit history.
My wife ended up putting the loan in her name and everything was fine.
I wanted to make sure that this problem went away once and for all so as not to have continuing problems.
I decided to collect a bunch of transunion emails and email them often until they took care of my problem.
The scenario now related, here are the emails:
To: <a bunch of transunion people>
Date: Mon, August 4, 2003 3:36 pm
Subject: update on my transunion problem
Hi,
This is the first of what I hope will be very few emails concerning my dispute resolution with your company. I've gathered your email addresses from public sources on the internet.
Here's the story:
I submitted a dispute with your online system months ago with the single result of an auto-generated email. The email said you'd investigate the issue with the reporting company within 3-5 days. I never heard anytyhing else, but I was fairly confident you'd work it out in as much as NellNet claims to have no record of me or the accounts listed. If your company had actually called them, there is no way it would still be on my credit report.
Like I said, I've not since heard from anyone at your company. The other day, I tried to buy a garden tractor from Sears and got turned down thanks to some information provided by Transunion. I'm about to seek a home equity line of credit and my guess is that I'm about to get turned down for that line of credit as a result of the incorrect information.
Today, I submitted a question about what to do if the online dispute process doesn't work. The answer I got back said to call the customer support number. This number won't let you talk to anyone unless I get a copy of my credit report from you. I submitted a request for this through your online system, but I'm less than confident that I'll hear anything back on this in as much as I've had no luck with another of your online systems.
I'm frustrated and looking for solutions so I thought I'd ask for help from people in the know.
You've got my name. The company you claim I have accounts with is called NellNet. NellNet has never heard of me. I don't want to send a SSN through email, but my guess is that you can look me up with my name just fine.
I'll keep you informed of my progress on this matter a few times a day.
Regards,
Fred McDavid
PS: I would be very grateful if you would forward this mesage to people who can help me. It is urgent that this matter be resolved quickly.
That was sent late in the day on Monday. So, at 8 am when I got to work the next day, I figured it'd been a while since they'd heard from me--and I'd not heard from them--so I fired off another:
To: <a bunch of transunion people>
Date: Tue, August 5, 2003 8:38 am
Subject: still no luck
Hi everybody,
It's been about 5 or 6 business hours since I filed my second dispute. I still haven't heard anything out of the dispute system. I guess it'll be 3-5 days again (although, technically we're on day 80 or so on the first dispute). I thought you guys were supposed to send me something via mail about this.
Did I read correctly? I thought I read where your CEO helped draft the federal law regarding the way your company has to behave with respect to the public. Under normal circumstances, I'd just figure they asked him to collaborate based on his expertise in the field. From my current perspective, it's a little squirrelly.
Regards,
--Fred
Tsk. tsk. I sound a little snarky in this one.
Funny this is, I remember thinking I was just a couple emails in on a multi-week, several-emails-a-day endeavor. I wasn't planning to spend much time on these emails.
So, the next email ends up being sort of train-of-conciousness style:
To: <a bunch of transunion people>
Date: Tue, August 5, 2003 10:52 am
Subject: brief update on my dispute
Hey everybody,
A little prose to lighten your day:
who was wont for some mail he could send ya
with a click of his mouse
and some wit, just an ounce
here's this which won't break but might bend ya
Well, maybe not. Anyway, I still haven't heard anything about how transunion is going to resolve my dispute.
When a data circuit goes down, I can call the provider and escalate the problem every hour on the hour until it's fixed. Is there a way to do that with Transunion? Maybe we should work that into the fair credit reporting act. The gist of it is, as trouble tickets become old, the trouble ticket number shows up on the pagers of increasingly important people in the company...ultimately arriving on the president's pager.
I write systems that automate these sorts of processes for a living. You shoud give me a call sometime. I'm full of ideas about how your system could be better.
I added hgambill to this list...now sure if it's the right address or not. Mr. Gambill's email address isn't littered around the 'net like the rest of them were. Worth a shot, I suppose.
Have a nice day...I'll keep you posted on my progress.
Regards,
Fred
I can't remember the guys's name, but hgambill@transunion.com was, according to the convention that all the rest of the emails I found adhered to, the email address of the CEO of Transunion. I was punting.
It worked. I sent the CEO of Transunion a limerick at 10:52 in the morning and within a couple of hours, someone called (I was at lunch with my wife) who confirmed she was calling because of "some emails that were sent". I'm not sure if she was talking about my emails or the subsequent emails from the CEO, but she fixed the problem while I was on the phone.
To be sure I didn't leave anyone hanging with no closure on the situation, I sent a final email when I got back from lunch:
To: <a bunch of transunion people>
Date: Tue, August 5, 2003 1:44 pm
Subject: Thank you
Hi,
I think we've knocked it out. I got a call from a very nice lady at your company while I was at lunch (I wish I would've caught her name, but it was pretty loud in the restaurant) and I believe she has taken care of my problem.
I really appreciate you all helping me out with this. Sorry to have annoyed each of you, but I do hope you understand how desperate my situation was becoming.
Thank you very much,
Fred McDavid
My wife and I have giggled about this from time to time ever since. She often tells me I should "email a limerick to the CEO."
I supposed I could try to spin some sort of lesson out of this, but it's not really something that I feel like I've repeated in the years that followed. I will say, though, that I had come to believe that these emails were lost and, when I found them on paper, I was absolutely elated.
The lesson is probably more of a have-multiple-backup strategies, not be-a-huge-pain-in-the-ass to CEOs.