Dealing with credit report mistakes
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Another problem was too many credit inquiries. Elliott says that the company he had one of his mortgages with, Greentree, was checking his credit rating monthly.

"They continue to do this even though they were bought out by Chase. American Express lowers my credit about every four months, and even though I have told them this is false and they are doing this to me in error, they tell me it is my job to prove them wrong."

Elliott is not alone in this struggle. 

James Shupe says he's been in the military for many years and has lived all over the United States. Somehow Experian, "managed to create home addresses for me in every major city or stop the mail makes on its way overseas.

"I had addresses in New York City, etc. They also had numerous similar duplicate addresses all over the report. If I was in apartment 1B at 3456, Experian would have addresses for apartment 1 in building 3456, and another for just building 3456. Or the same addresses with different states and zip codes," Shupe writes.

He says he tried five times to have the incorrect addresses removed, but it's still not fully fixed.

Shupe also had his name reported incorrectly. The credit agency added "IV" to the end of his name.

"I am not the IV. Experian refused to fix it and said talk to Capital One, and Capital One denied doing it and said talk to Experian. The blame game just went back and forth until I got sick of it and contested the entry on my credit report as not being mine on the basis that it was not my name," he writes.

Shupe discovered that he had the exact same problem with Chase reporting his name as C. James. He once again went back and forth with Experian in an effort to fix it.

"After the so-called credit inquiry investigation by Experian for the names, the outcome was nothing was wrong, and nothing would be changed. And I could not dispute it again! How can you have 30 creditors reporting your correct name and two doing it incorrectly and conclude they are not wrong? And one of them is doing it both correctly and incorrectly on top of that?" writes Shupe.

Separate, but equal?
Divorced? Well, keep a close eye on your report. That's what Patricia Dowers-Turpin warns. In the late 80s, Turpin purchased new carpeting for her home using a bank loan. But, the morning the carpet was supposed to arrive she received a call from the company telling her they were canceling her order because her credit had been denied by the bank.

"I was incredulous because my credit was and is excellent," Dowers-Turpin writes. "I asked the manager of the carpet company why and, of course, he directed me to the bank for answers. Finally I was informed that the declination was because of my bankruptcy. I was astounded because I had never filed bankruptcy."