Vince is Dead

I received some terrible news recently. I am deceased. During an afternoon of boredom I filled out and returned one of the endless line of pre-approved credit applications than clutter my mailbox. So after about 2 weeks I got the response. "We regret to reform you that we can not approve your application at this time because our records indicate that you are deceased." Holy shit, I died and no one told me. I'm in some ethereal middle plane of existence where I sill intersect with all the living but I'm really dead. Thanks a lot guys. Someone could have at least tipped me in. I guess maybe that is against the rules. "At this time" ? What? So maybe sometime in the future when I'm a little less dead they might approve me? The kicker here to me is that I still get the applications from these cats twice a week.

So this is just the beginning of what I have come to find out is going to be a total nightmare. I decided I'd better clear this situation up. I can understand where the mixup came. My father, Vincent B Terlep Jr., passed away 6 years ago. I can see how they would mix that up with Vincent B Terlep III. But, the way they do these things is by Social Security Number, not name. So somewhere in cyberspace they put my SSN with my dad's name. This is kind of a good thing, I suppose. My credit is outstanding. Unfortunately I can't use it because I am dead.

Clearing this situation up is not as easy as you would think. Or that I thought it would be. The kind people at Capitol 1 told me that I would have to get in touch with Equifax in order to fix the situation. So I go to there website looking for a number to contact them at. Not to be found. The only number they have anywhere on the site is an automated line that you call to purchase your credit report (for $9). It seems the only way to actually talk to someone is to have the credit report in your hand. The number to talk to a representative is printed on the report itself. So no big deal, just get the credit report, right. There is even a new law that requires these companies to give you one credit report a year for free. Sweet. I go to the website for this new law so I can get the report and get the number so I can talk to someone and clear this up. I start to fill out the application and then there comes this page in the application that I need to verify that I am actually me. Right on, good safety measure. So they ask me a couple of questions that only I should know the answer to. "With which company did you have your last mortgage" And "How much were the payments" or something like that. Shit, again. Wasn't expecting this. So the only way to get the report to get the number to talk to someone to prove that I am not my dead father is to answer these questions in order to prove that I am my dead father. Nightmare.

So I get on the horn to the FTC. (Cell minutes flying out of me, hundred by now) They confirm for me that there is no way that I can talk to these people without the credit report. They won't give me any of the numbers, or really help at all. Sorry guy. Tough luck, no credit for you. I'm figuring at this point that I'm going to have to hop a greyhound down to Georgia and walk in to the Equifax corporate office and punch someone in the face to prove to them Im not dead.

I guess that's where it stands at this point. I'll let you know when I get resurrected. There will be a feast and a holiday. I guess I should have been tipped off to this whole thing when I was working on Ever Be True and played that end part backwards. I could have sworn I heard "Vince is dead...Vince is dead."