Zoe Lorenz-Boser of Edmonton says she got the phone call in October 2024 — and still hasn’t forgotten it.
The 23-year-old mechanical engineer was at work at a construction company. The caller was from a collections agency and told her she owed thousands of dollars on a credit card opened under her name. He said he knew where she lived and worked, she says, and threatened to garnish her wages, seize her car and ruin her life if she didn’t pay immediately.
"I argued to the point of frustrated crying,” said Lorenz-Boser. "Stating repeatedly that this wasn’t my debt. I’ve never opened these accounts.”
Lorenz-Boser was the victim of fraud. Someone — possibly more than one person — had taken out credit in her name at Telus, Shaw and PC Financial and racked up $20,000 in debt.
It was the beginning of an “extremely frustrating” 18-month fight to repair her credit record with Canada’s two dominant credit rating agencies, Equifax and TransUnion.
I am in the US, but I had to fight them over the course of several years after a rental agency sold an old debt to a collection agency right after the COVID shutdown happened. The rental company claimed I owed several thousand in damages to my old apartment, my roommates and I had taken them to court and won, meaning the debt was dismissed legally. If they wanted to try to collect it, they would have needed to sue me to reverse this decision.
I sent both credit agencies all of the proof, including the legal paperwork for the judge’s dismissal of the debt. They refused to accept it and remove the debt because “the collection agency confirmed they had the right info”. The collection agency refused to stop reporting the debt, even when I provided them the same proof. I had to scrape up another few thousand over the next five years to pay a lawyer to threaten to sue the lot of them in federal court before they removed it. And in the meantime, my credit score tanked, and I was repeatedly denied housing, needed credit like car financing, and even was denied opening a bank account.
Both of these companies are operating with flagrant disregard of the law, besides the fact that they shouldn’t exist in the first place. The problem is in the fact that we woukd need a massive class action to do anything, and no one is willing to do that. So they keep getting away with bringing people’s lives to a halt. I was lucky enough to have a partner to help me through it, but I know so many others who weren’t so lucky.
Remember when Trudeau wanted rent to be part of people’s credit scores. It is amazingly bizarre people considered him to be a progressive economically.
As if these 2 private corporations didn’t already control people financial well-being enough.
I missed this. What was he trying to do?
Why the hell can’t we freeze our credit in Canada. Like have we not demanded it enough.
We can… Or is this a Quebec only thing?
I had mine froze, I can’t rmbr exactly how long ago, maybe 15 years. I had someone attempt to get a credit card in my name, it ended with me having my credit locked for 7 years. I’m pretty sure the way it worked was there was a note on my credit file that I had to get a phone call before any credit was issued in my name. I was in a bank one time during this period looking for credit, the rep actually phoned my phone while I was sitting there. In Canada. I had to deal with Equifax, Transunion, and also Experian.
I never answer my phone.
