Quite literally the worst music, ever

Ben and I are trying to trim the budget in preparation for the baby (and our one-income status). So we decided to switch cell phone carriers. Similar plans, similar coverage, $40/month savings. Right on.

But when I went to open a new account last night, my credit was denied. Why? Because when they type in my social security number, their computer tells them that I'm Craig T. Moody from Houston, Texas. The same loser who tried to buy a $40,000 Cadillac with my social security number last year. Barf. I hate that guy.

Apparently Craig T. Moody is now an alias on my social security number. Fantastic. What's even better is there is no way to remove him. He's in my records. Forever. It just gives me the creeps.

It doesn't appear that he committed any actual fraud with my social security number. Just that he tried. Last time I checked there was nothing unusual in my credit report. But he's freaked me out again, so I'm pulling another report. Just to be sure.

Normally it's really easy to pull your credit report online. But I froze my credit after the initial scare last year, meaning that I have to provide a PIN for any lender to access my credit. It also means that I have to call the credit bureau and prove to a representative that I'm actually me, and not some weirdo imposter.

I've now been on hold for the past 27 minutes with the world's worst hold music. I swear, they use it to weed out the weak.

(For the record, I didn't do anything weird or unsafe with my social security number. The police officer I talked to in Houston said that they've had problems with credit bureau staff selling social security numbers with good credit scores to criminals. Ew!

It's also possible that Craig T. Moody just made up a number and it happened to be mine. This is most likely since most criminals won't use a social security number with a different gender. That's actually how Craig T. Moody got caught. I'm a girl. He's not. The auto dealership found that suspicious.)

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Update: My total hold time was 43 minutes. I was making friendly small-talk with the representative and said, "Wow, you must be busy today!" To which he responds, "No, it's actually a little slow." Wait, what? Then why the hell did I just wait on hold for 43 minutes?!?!?

The good news? My credit report looks fine. Nothing weird or out of the ordinary. The bad news? The representative I talked to said I will likely always struggle with in-store credit checks, since Craig T. Moody appears alphabetically before Samantha L. Zinth. Boo.