Victim Statement: Woman Sues Credit Reporting Firms for Declaring Her Dead

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Woman Sues Credit Reporting Firms for Declaring Her Dead

ST. LOUIS — Jul 31, 2015, 5:12 PM ET

A 40-year-old St. Louis woman isn't dead, but she said she spent months trying to convince credit reporting agencies that she's alive.

Alexandria Goree is suing Experian, TransUnion and Equifax over the glitch, contending that it was difficult to get loans or a new home, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Her suit, filed last week in federal court, said Goree found a "deceased" notation on her credit files in the summer of 2013. Such a notice can appear when a creditor informs a reporting agency that one of its customers has died.

"Wow. Words can't really explain how I felt," she said. "It was just emotional."

She said she had to deal with numerous rejections from credit card companies and local businesses because the credit reporting firms said that she was dead.

"Anything that would require monthly payments," she said, "I was only able to purchase with cash."

Representatives of TransUnion and Experian told the newspaper that they couldn't comment on pending litigation. A spokesman for Equifax said the company's attorneys were just notified about the lawsuit and needed more time to research it.

Goree said the misinformation hurt her efforts in finding a new place to live after her grandson's 2013 hit-and-run death outside her former home in north St. Louis County home. Her landlord agreed to let her break her lease to move away from the street where 2-year-old Darion Griffin was struck. Her lawsuit contends that a series of rental housing applications were rejected.

She said it took months of phone calls, letters and emails to convince Experian and TransUnion to return her to the land of the living. It's unclear if Equifax also has done so.