Jolie Montgomery says she and her twin sister Josie are being treated like the same person by credit reporting agencies — and she worries the mix-up could complicate major financial decisions, including buying a home.
The sisters have similar names, the same birthday and Social Security numbers that are one digit apart. They say information from each twin’s credit history has appeared on the other’s reports.
The problem first surfaced in 2022, when Josie wanted to buy a car.
“My sister was living in Oklahoma, and she was, like, applying for her first car loan and all of her hard inquiries, like, started popping up on my credit,” Montgomery said.
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Montgomery disputed the inquiries with Equifax and sent the company a certified letter. She says Equifax told her to contact the companies that had made the inquiries.
“I filed a dispute with Equifax, and I also sent them a certified letter through the mail,” Montgomery said. “And they basically sent me a letter back in the mail saying that I needed to contact all of these companies she had had inquiries through. Otherwise, basically, they couldn’t do anything about it.”
More recently, Montgomery says she and her sister found that their Experian reports appeared identical, with each woman’s credit information showing up in the other’s file. She says accounts connected to her and her husband also appeared on her sister’s report, making it look as though both had more debt.
Montgomery says the mix-up has not stopped the sisters from financing vehicles. But she doesn’t know how it’s impacted them.
“Who’s to say that it hasn’t affected, like, the interest rates that I’ve received or, not to mention, like, credit limits? I have no idea,” she said.
Neither sister has tried to buy a home yet. Montgomery worries the blended information could affect a future mortgage application by making it appear she already has debts or accounts that belong to her sister.
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She says she found an attorney willing to help her pursue a fix without charging her up front. Montgomery says legal action against the credit reporting agencies is planned, but resolving the issue could take time.
“I don’t even feel like I should have to do that,” she said. “I’m young. I don’t just have thousands of dollars to get an attorney to try to fix something that I didn’t even do. So it’s just honestly ridiculous.”
The credit reporting agencies had not responded to a request for comment at the time this story was prepared.
Montgomery says she posted about the problem on social media and heard from other twins who said they had dealt with similar credit-report mix-ups. Credit reports can contain mistakes, so consumers can check their reports from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion for free through AnnualCreditReport.com, which offers free online reports weekly.
